October 20, 2017 | Local, Aerospace, C4ISR
October 20, 2017 – Ottawa
The All Domain Situational Awareness (ADSA) Science & Technology program will support the development of options, over a period of five years, for enhanced domain awareness of air, maritime surface and sub-surface approaches to Canada, in particular those in the Arctic.
Surveillance solutions explored and selected through the ADSA Science & Technology program will strengthen the Government of Canada's ability to exercise sovereignty in the North, and will provide a greater awareness of safety and security issues, as well as transportation and commercial activity in Canada's Arctic.
Canada's contributions to regional Arctic security also form a core part of the Canada-United States defence relationship. Nowhere is this more apparent than in joint efforts to renew the North Warning System (NWS) and modernize elements of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). As the security dynamics in the Arctic evolve, Canada and the United States will continue to work side by side to secure our shared northern air and maritime approaches.
The NWS is a chain of unmanned radar stations in Canada's Arctic that provides aerospace surveillance of Canadian and United States northern approaches.
While the current NWS is approaching the end of its life expectancy from a technological and functional perspective, the range of potential threats to the continent, such as those posed by cruise missiles, has become more complex and increasingly difficult to detect.
To this end, Canada and the United States have already launched bilateral collaboration to seek innovative technological solutions to continental defence challenges including early warning. Studies are ongoing to determine how best to replace this important capability as part of the overall modernization of NORAD.
The ADSA Science & Technology program is part of this bilateral collaboration.
The following are the successful proposals from the first Call for Proposals:
Title: Acoustic Source for Ocean Propagation Experimentation
Supplier: GeoSpectrum Technologies Inc
Location: Dartmouth, Nova Scotia
Domain: Sub-Surface Surveillance
Project Type: Technology Demonstration
Funding: $4,953,038 (until 31 March 2020)
GeoSpectrum Technologies Inc has been awarded a contract to develop, design, build and test an acoustic source which will support scientific experiments in underwater sound propagation. Such a device may form part of future systems capable of providing long distance underwater communications to support, for example, an unmanned underwater vehicle engaged in open ocean or under ice survey work.
Title: Acoustic Array for Persistent Under-Ice Vehicles
Supplier: GeoSpectrum Technologies Inc
Location: Dartmouth, Nova Scotia
Domain: Sub-Surface Surveillance
Project Type: Research and Development
Funding: $1,944,175 (until 20 September 2019)
The objective of this project is to design and build a sensor array suitable for towing from an unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV). The innovative design, employing a fishing line-like cable with acoustic sensors, may be suitable for year-round underwater and under-ice operations, in environmentally hostile Arctic waters.
Title: Development of the Canadian High Arctic Ionospheric Models (CHAIM)
Supplier: University of New Brunswick
Location: Fredericton, New Brunswick
Domain: Air Surveillance
Project Type: Research and Development
Funding: $1,165,143 (until 31 March 2020)
Current ionospheric models, used for prediction of radio wave propagation for communications and other applications, have significant shortcomings in Arctic regions. This is due to inaccuracies and limited local ionospheric observations. This project aims to improve this by producing high latitude electron density models at altitudes between 100 and 3,000 kilometres.
Title: Bistatic High Elevation Long Endurance (HALE) Unmanned Air System (UAS) Scenario Study
Supplier: C-CORE
Location: Ottawa, Ontario
Domain: Surface Surveillance
Project Type: Study
Funding: $221,000 (until 31 July 2018)
This project is for the study of the potential capabilities of using a high altitude long endurance (HALE) unmanned air system (UAS) as a receiver in a bistatic configuration with commercial synthetic aperture radar (SAR) missions, both current and future. The study will look at how various configurations of transmitters and HALE UAS-mounted receivers can augment current detection and discrimination capabilities, while providing a highly mobile, persistent, all weather surveillance asset that currently does not exist.
April 6, 2022 | Local, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security
Après des années de sous-financement, le Canada devra assumer une très longue et coûteuse liste d’épicerie pour mettre sa défense à niveau.
December 16, 2021 | Local, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security
What do 48 elephants and 18 CN Towers have in common? It's CANSEC! Did you know that it takes 48.3 elephants worth of freight (or, if you are a dog lover, 2,000 chihuahuas), 18.2 CN Towers length of cable and enough carpet to cover 5.4 hockey rinks to put on one CANSEC? Well, now you're equipped to win any CANSEC trivia contest! Even more importantly, CANSEC is North America's largest tri-service defence event and the place to create relationships with a captive audience of thousands of senior military and government representatives, international delegations and industry leaders. But hurry, because CANSEC exhibit space is already 90% sold out! Just check out more fun CANSEC stats below:
September 14, 2018 | Local, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR
Christyn (Chris) Cianfarani In late 2011, the Department of National Defence decided that the rafts it was using to carry out search and rescue operations in open water were due for an update. Part of DND's sea rescue kit, the new rafts needed to be compact and durable, but they also had to inflate reliably at temperatures as low as -50 C in the frozen expanses of Canada's North. If they didn't, lives could hang in the balance. Enter Benoit Corbeil and his team at Tulmar Safety Systems, who found a way to create a light, durable raft that could be safely airdropped, and would inflate manually on the ice or automatically in water. With a fully enclosed canopy, those rescued can now be immediately sheltered from the cold wind and freezing ocean spray. The responsibility to save lives is what drives people like Benoit and thousands of other Canadians working in the defence and security industries to continue creating innovative solutions to complex problems. In my role as the head of the Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries (CADSI), I'm often struck by the sheer level of creativity and talent in our sector. But it shouldn't come as a surprise because we've been gathering evidence on this for a few years now. Flexible, collaborative and fruitful In May, CADSI – in partnership with Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) and Statistics Canada – released the latest State of Canada's Defence Industry report. We found that defence and security companies were behind $400 million worth of research and development (R&D) in 2016, resulting in an R&D intensity close to 4.5 times higher than the Canadian manufacturing average. Our members – now more than 900 of them across Canada – aren't doing this work in a vacuum, of course. They are collaborating with partners in academia, government and supply chains to push boundaries and develop brand new technologies. DND's new Innovation for Defence Excellence and Security (IDEaS) Program will help encourage even more of this type of cooperation, allocating $1.6 -billion over two decades to innovative solutions that address Canada's defence and security challenges. Sixteen initial challenges have been identified, and start-ups, SMEs, corporations and academics have all been invited to apply. The first contracts were awarded in August, with more coming in fall 2018. But our industry's work is already having tangible, real-world impacts for average Canadians. In July, for instance, global satellite operator Telesat – a company headquartered right in Ottawa – launched the Telstar 19 VANTAGE. This powerful satellite will connect communities across Nunavut with faster and more reliable broadband, opening the territory to the world. We featured Telesat vice-president Michele Beck's contributions to this project in our My North, My Home campaign. Full article: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/heres-why-canadas-defence-industry-innovation-cianfarani/