July 27, 2023 | Local, Aerospace
Design work is underway on a program that will deliver 16 almost-new CH-149 Cormorant search-and-rescue helicopters to the RCAF over the next six years.
https://skiesmag.com/news/511-612-how-leonardo-imp-plan-overhaul-canadian-cormorant-helicopter/
April 4, 2023 | Local, Naval
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hailed the inclusion of Quebec's Davie Shipyard in the federal government's national shipbuilding program Tuesday as a major step forward for national industrial policy.
August 5, 2021 | Local, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security
Un concours est actuellement ouvert pour IDeaS jusqu'au 7 septembre. IDeaS permet aux entreprises de développer des produits innovants afin de répondre aux défis de nos forces canadiennes. Les différents programmes permettent le développement et même la commercialisation d'innovations. Le texte en français suit. The Green Heat: Low Carbon Energy Generation for Heating Existing Buildings Test Drive call for proposals is open! Lowering our carbon footprint is a significant matter for governments world-wide. The Government of Canada is committed to reducing its absolute Scope 1 and Scope 2 Green House Gas (GHG) emissions by at least 90% below 2005 levels by 2050. Currently, 60 percent of the energy requirements in DND facilities is for space heating, of which 90 per cent is generated from the burning of fossil fuels. Given that DND has more than 10,000 buildings in its portfolio, the need to address the GHG emissions of these buildings is essential. The challenge is in finding ways to convert these buildings to low carbon heating without requiring a major building retrofit, which would be cost prohibitive. DND and CAF are looking to Test Drive creative energy generation solutions to pair up with existing heating systems to help lower our carbon footprint. Specifically, the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces (DND/CAF) are seeking a large-scale, low carbon energy generation/transfer system for heating existing buildings by integrating with their current hydronic heat distribution systems. A test building has been selected in Kingston, Ontario, for a Design-Build team to design and install an innovative system, in order to assess the effectiveness and the costs of these integrated technologies, with the aim of reducing the energy demand and carbon footprint of DND/CAFs infrastructure portfolio. The potential funding for the Design-Build contract component of the project has been established in the range of $5,500,000. See the full Call for Proposals that was issued July 27, 2021, and explore how you can support environmental progress. The deadline for application is September 7, 2021. Interested in knowing more about this test drive? Please reach out to the Test Drive & Sandbox Team: IDEaSSandboxes-EnvironnementsprotegesIDEeS@forces.gc.ca The IDEaS Team L'appel à propositions du Banc d'essai Énergie Verte : Production d'énergie à faibles émissions de carbone pour le chauffage de b'timents existants est ouvert! Réduire notre empreinte carbone est une question importante pour les gouvernements du monde entier. Le gouvernement du Canada s'est engagé à réduire ses émissions absolues de gaz à effet de serre (GES) de portée 1 et de portée 2 d'au moins 90 % par rapport aux niveaux de 2005 d'ici 2050. À l'heure actuelle, 60 % des besoins énergétiques des installations du MDN sont destinés au chauffage des locaux , dont 90 pour cent sont générés par la combustion de combustibles fossiles. Étant donné que le MDN compte plus de 10 000 b'timents dans son portefeuille, le besoin de s'attaquer aux émissions de GES de ces b'timents est essentiel. Le défi consiste à trouver des moyens de convertir ces b'timents au chauffage à faible émission de carbone sans nécessiter une rénovation majeure du b'timent, ce qui serait prohibitif. Le ministère de la Défense nationale et les Forces armées canadiennes (MDN/FAC) cherchent à tester des solutions créatives de production d'énergie à jumeler avec les systèmes de chauffage existants pour aider à réduire notre empreinte carbone. Plus précisément, le MDN et les FAC recherchent un système de production/transfert d'énergie à grande échelle et à faible émission de carbone pour chauffer les b'timents existants en s'intégrant à leurs systèmes de distribution de chauffage hydronique actuels. Un b'timent d'essai a été sélectionné à Kingston, en Ontario, afin qu'une équipe de conception-construction conçoive et installe un système novateur, afin d'évaluer l'efficacité et les coûts de ces technologies intégrées, dans le but de réduire la demande d'énergie et l'empreinte carbone du portefeuille d'infrastructures du MDN et des FAC. Le financement possible pour le volet conception-construction du projet a été établi à environ 5 500 000 $. Examinez la demande de propositions complète qui fut publiée le 27 juillet 2021, et explorez comment vous pourriez contribuer au progrès environnemental. La date d'échéance pour appliquer est le 7 septembre 2021. Ça vous intéresse d'en savoir plus sur ce banc d'essai? Communiquez avec l'équipe: IDEaSSandboxes-EnvironnementsprotegesIDEeS@forces.gc.ca L'équipe IDEeS
December 18, 2018 | Local, Aerospace, C4ISR
Backgrounder December 14, 2018 – Ottawa, Ontario – National Defence/Canadian Armed Forces Already a leader in civilian radar earth observation as a result of the launch of RADARSAT-2 in 2007, Canada will soon launch the three-satellite RADARSAT Constellation Mission (RCM). This mission will carry a multi-mode synthetic aperture radar and an automatic identification system to enable enhanced ship tracking and provide greater awareness of Canada's territories as well as other areas of interest around the world where DND and its Allies operate. In order to enhance Canada's current and future earth observation capabilities, research and development is required to generate new approaches and tools to simplify and accelerate the tasking, collection, processing, exploitation and dissemination (TCPED) cycle. This cycle ensures that end-users have timely, relevant, accurate and actionable information products, such as maps and reports to support intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) applications. This type of Canadian investment in cutting-edge science and technology (S&T) innovations will guide the design of new advanced earth observation satellites that will eventually replace the RCM. The All Domain Situational Awareness (ADSA) S&T Program has funded several calls for proposals to support innovation including in the area of compressing TCPED cycle for earth observing satellites in support of applications in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. A recent ADSA call was undertaken through the Defence Innovation Research Program (DIRP) and resulted in the Government of Canada investing $6.7 million into 12 projects aimed at improving the TCPED cycle. Structured as 50/50 cost-shared contracts with funding shared equally between government and industry, the DIRP model promotes joint ventures between Canada's innovation industry and the Government of Canada, bringing the total public and private investment under this call for proposals to $13.2 million. The following are the contracts awarded under the second DIRP call for proposals for the TCPED initiative. Title Complementary Electro-Optic/Infrared (EO/IR) payload to RADARSAT Constellation Mission (RCM) follow-on Supplier ABB Location Quebec, Quebec Project Type Study Federal contribution $305,000 (Total: $610,000) This project aims to help define mission objectives, requirements, and concepts for a secondary electro-optic/infrared payload for the RCM follow-on mission. It will also help identify critical technologies and risks. The combination of different types of remote sensing sensors on the same spacecraft has the potential to greatly enhance situational awareness capabilities especially with respect to maritime traffic monitoring. Title Project Arviq Supplier AstroCom Associates Inc. Location Ottawa, Ontario Project Type Study Federal contribution $165,000 (Total: $330,000) Project Arviq will investigate the feasibility of a proposed capability to detect ocean waves in sea ice. Arviq builds upon recent results that show centimetre-scale ice waves can be imaged directly using synthetic aperture radar interferometry technology. Title Multi-satellite data integration for operational ship detection, identification and tracking Supplier C-CORE Location St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador Project Type Study Federal contribution $775,000 (Total: $1,550,000) This study will investigate and develop a multi-satellite data classifying approach to enhance the capacity to discriminate ships from icebergs. Efficiently and rapidly classifying detected objects of interest in or over water is a key area of interest to the maritime domain situational awareness community. Title Modelling the geospatial intelligence capability to support Canadian surveillance and sovereignty Supplier C-CORE Location St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador Project Type Study Federal contribution $940,000 (Total: $1,880,000) This project will evaluate the spatio-temporal aspects of acquiring, downlinking and analyzing imagery for the generation of geographical intelligence products in support of land and maritime monitoring. It will investigate and develop a multi-satellite data classifier to better characterize ship and non-ship targets. Title Electro-Optic/Infrared data analytics for enhanced maritime surveillance Supplier Complex System Inc. Location Calgary, Alberta Project Type Study and prototype development Federal contribution $200,000 (Total: $400,000) This project will develop an on-board video processing system which will be used together with space-based radar and ship dectection sensors to enhance near-real time vessel detection, tracking and identification. Complex Systems Inc. will develop a new data analytics system by leveraging leading edge computer vision and machine learning technologies and deliver a suite of advanced processing tools enabling enhancing maritime surveillance capabilities. Title RADARSAT thematic exploitation platform demonstrator Supplier CubeWerx Inc. Location Gatineau, QC Project Type Study Federal contribution $485,000 (Total: $970,000) This project will study complementary Big Data and Cloud computing approaches to support scalability, agility, and on-demand availability of earth observation data products. CubeWerx will develop a RADARSAT thematic exploitation platform and demonstrate a working environment where users can package their applications and upload them to a Cloud environment that supports the processing of users algorithms at scale, avoiding the need to download and store large volumes of images locally. Title Real-time processing of large-volume space-based multimodal data Supplier General Dynamics Mission Systems Location Ottawa, Ontario Project Type Study and prototype development Federal contribution $75,000 ($150,000) This project will develop new approaches using emerging graphics processing unit architectures and the latest algorithms to process large volumes of satellite remote sensing data from multiple sources and types such as multiband radar, electro-optical and infrared sensors. Title Augmenting Canada's maritime surveillance capability with complementary electro-optic/infrared information products Supplier MDA Systems Ltd. Location Richmond, British Columbia Project Type Study and prototype development Federal contribution $1,000,000 (Total: $2,000,000) This project will demonstrate how incorporating various types of space remote sensing satellite data elements can augment maritime surveillance capabilities with additional detections and improve classification, identification, and tracking. Title Application of Big Data analytics techniques to extracting GEOINT from synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery Supplier MDA Geospatial Services Inc. Location Richmond, British Columbia Project Type Study Federal contribution $500,000 (Total: $1,000,000) This project will investigate Big Data analytics and automatization techniques to better exploit the large and growing data archives of RADARSAT-2 and the upcoming RADARSAT Constellation Mission (RCM). It proposes to understand and demonstrate how Big Data analytics, in particular deep learning, can be applied to large archives of synthetic aperture radar imagery to extract relevant geospatial intelligence. Title Persistent multi-sensor land surveillance and change monitoring Supplier MDA Systems Ltd. Location Richmond, British Columbia Project Type Study Federal contribution $750,000 (Total: $1,500,000) This project will explore how wide-area automated change monitoring techniques can be enhanced by using a combination of earth observing data types such as RADARSAT and electro-optical data. The expected benefits include more persistent, more operational, all-weather monitoring capabilities combined with very high change classification accuracy. The project will leverage deep learning and exploit the availability of large satellite image archives. Title Architecture innovations for analytics-ready data Supplier UrtheCast Corp. Location Vancouver, British Columbia Project Type Study and prototype development Federal contribution $1,000,000 (Total: $2,000,000) This project will demonstrate scalable warehousing and on-demand processing of analytics-ready space remote sensing data from multiple types of earth obervation systems, to enable emerging techniques including artificial intelligence to be used for the production of geographical information products. Title Complementary sensor exploitation Supplier UrtheCast Corp. Location Vancouver, British Columbia Project Type Study and prototype development Federal contribution $499,000 (Total: $999,000) This project will develop, implement and demonstrate a new system to deliver thematic maps derived from complementary satellite earth observation data sources in support of CAF land operations. https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/news/2018/12/government-of-canada-announces-contract-awards-aimed-at-improving-space-based-earth-observation-capabilities.html