Back to news

January 25, 2021 | Local, Aerospace, C4ISR

Saab outlines potential expansion in Canada

January 19, 2021

By Wings Staff

At the AIx Space 2021 Conference, Saab outlined a proposed plan to establish a new facility in Canada as part of its offer for Canada's Future Fighter Capability Project (FFCP).

The facility would be known as the Saab Sensor Centre, located in Vancouver, British Columbia, with a focus on sensor technologies such as radar. The Saab Sensor Centre would provide career opportunities for Canadian engineering talent in the Vancouver area, as well offering research and development avenues for academia.

One of the proposed projects is to develop a Space Surveillance Radar (SSR) in Canada, in co-operation with other companies within the Canadian space industry. It is envisaged that this surface radar will target the global market for greater awareness of objects in the Earth's orbit.

“So much of modern life and military capability depends on space-based assets. Today space is anything but empty when it comes to the Earth's immediate vicinity with an increasing number of satellites and many more to come,” said Simon Carroll, President of Saab Canada Inc., in a statement. “We feel that Saab teamed with Canadian space partners are the perfect combination to co-develop a SSR for Canada and the global market.”

A Saab radar demonstrator has been built and is the basis for a co-development opportunity of a SSR with Canadian companies. This demonstrator leverages radar technology as found in Saab's military radars that operate across the world including on Canadian and U.S. naval ships.

Saab, in co-operation with the Swedish government, has offered 88 Gripen E fighter aircraft, for Canada's FFCP. The establishment of the Saab Sensor Centre is part of the associated Canada-wide Industrial and Technological Benefits (ITB) program from Saab.

In co-operation with the Swedish government, Saab's Gripen E fighter bid includes a support and training package for FFCP. The proposal includes a another two proposed Saab centres in Montreal. Known separately as the Gripen Centre and the Aerospace Research & Development Centre, they would be co-located in the Greater Montreal Region.

“These two centres, managed and staffed by Canadians, will provide prosperity and employment security, with several thousand new Canadian jobs across the Province of Quebec. This proposal will boost employment and generate valuable economic activity, as well as strengthening the aerospace sector,” stated Johansson, in an earlier statement.

The Gripen Centre would be the fighter's ITB centerpiece, primarily staffed by the Gripen for Canada Team. Work at the centre will be conducted by Canadians to ensure Gripen meets NORAD and NATO requirements. The Gripen Centre will also act as a hub for supporting and sustaining Gripen, while allowing Canada to manage future upgrades in-country.

The Aerospace R&D Centre will act as a focal point over decades for developing a rich ecosystem for research and innovation, representing a key component of Saab's long-term vision in Canada. The Aerospace R&D Centre will develop, test and produce next generation aerospace systems and components to complement the existing Canadian aerospace industry, which may include unmanned aerial systems, artificial intelligence and environmentally progressive aviation technologies.

The Gripen for Canada Team was announced in March 2020 and consists of IMP Aerospace and Defence, CAE, Peraton and GE.

https://www.wingsmagazine.com/saab-expanding-its-facilities-in-canada/

On the same subject

  • CarteNAV and Sentient Vision collaborate on PAL Aerospace winning aerial surveillance bid

    March 5, 2019 | Local, Aerospace

    CarteNAV and Sentient Vision collaborate on PAL Aerospace winning aerial surveillance bid

    CarteNav and Sentient Vision are pleased to announce their valuable contribution to PAL Aerospace's winning bid to provide the Government of Canada with aerial surveillance capability for Canada's inland, coastal and offshore waters. The contract, delivered on behalf of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, covers an initial five-year period and includes opportunities for PAL Aerospace to earn contract extensions that increase the total life of the agreement to 10 years. As part of the winning bid, PAL aircraft will operate a specially configured Visual Detection and Ranging (ViDAR) array within the CarteNav AIMS mission system. The seamless incorporation of this world-leading ViDAR technology into the AIMS system is a meaningful complement to the capability of the PAL aircraft that will serve this contract. ViDAR is a wide area optical search system capable of operation unaffected by environmental marine obstacles, such as whitecaps, which detrimentally affect traditional technologies. The system is unique in its ability to detect objects as small as fishing buoys and people in the water over significant areas, allowing aircraft operators to map vast swaths of the ocean in real time. ViDAR autonomously locates objects on the surface of the water, transmits a thumbnail and location coordinate back to the AIMS mission system and prompts the operator to investigate further. “Sentient was excited to work with CarteNav on the integration of ViDAR into the AIMS mission system to support this important contract,” said Simon Olsen, Sentient's director of Business Development, Strategy and Partnerships. “Blending these leading edge technologies into a combined offering marks a significant step forward and will now provide a game-changing ocean surface search solution to the Government of Canada.” Both ViDAR and AIMS have extensive records of accomplishment and are in operation on multiple continents across multiple environments in both military and civilian applications. “CarteNav has worked successfully with Sentient for many years, originally on the implementation of the Kestrel Moving Target Indicator (MTI) feature into AIMS, and most recently on integrating ViDAR,” said CarteNav COO Carl Daniels. “AIMS provides an intuitive interface from which operators can take advantage of the capabilities of the ViDAR persistent wide-area maritime search. The addition of ViDAR reaffirms our focus on operator workflow and mission delivery which has established CarteNav as a leader in mission system solutions.” CarteNav's collaboration with Sentient and valued contribution to the winning PAL bid demonstrates a significant combined operating capacity to deliver leading edge services to customers for a variety of maritime surveillance applications. The successful execution of this contract on behalf of the Government of Canada fortifies CarteNav and Sentient's shared credentials in this area and should open the door to capture additional, mutually beneficial opportunities in the future. https://www.skiesmag.com/press-releases/cartenav-and-sentient-vision-collaborate-on-pal-aerospace-winning-aerial-surveillance-bid

  • Astronaut Joshua Kutryk shares updates about Boeing Starliner mission, personal mission patch  - Skies Mag

    March 25, 2024 | Local, Aerospace

    Astronaut Joshua Kutryk shares updates about Boeing Starliner mission, personal mission patch  - Skies Mag

    Kutryk was in Kingston, Ont., on March 23, presenting to the students and faculty of his alma mater, the Royal Military College of Canada.

  • OVA : AFWerx Fusion

    August 3, 2020 | Local, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

    OVA : AFWerx Fusion

    Recently selected among the finalists for the challenge of "Leveraging Operational Effectiveness Through Technology", OVA presented their new augmented reality solution which allows operators to have more information at their fingertips, but also to improve the detection and anchoring capacity of the Microsoft Hololens 2. For more info please watch the video : https://youtu.be/wyHGMRn1kR8 Or visit their virtual booth : https://fusion.afwerxshowcase.com/exhibitor/ova-inc-8724 Building on recent work scientifically demonstrating the effectiveness of such an approach, we have adopted interdisciplinary human factors and cognitive engineering methods to design and test our innovative solution based on augmented reality (AR). Changes in cognitive load have predictable effects upon physiological measures and provide an objective and non‐obtrusive index of the load imposed upon distinct brain systems with specific functions, while state-of-the-eye metrics (e.g., pupil dilation, and blink rate and duration) can indicate workload and fatigue level. Enhancing the Hololens' tracking and identification capability with artificial intelligence has fixed major flaws in the hardware's adoption by main OEMs.

All news