Drone Firm Unifly Joins Canadian BVLOS Project

SkySensus, a Canadian drone research project, is flying high after it was selected to fulfill Canada’s official Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) Traffic Management Service Trials.

SkySensus will partner with Belgium-based Unifly, one of Europe’s big names in unmanned traffic management (UTM).

Funded by national-security firm Peraton Canada, SkySensus is a project tasked with drone research and development and commercialization for Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS).

RTM Service Trials develop the requirements, performance levels  and deployment of services needed for Canada’s RPAS drone Traffic Management system.

“We are thrilled to partner with SkySensus as the consortium offers the expertise, experience, and technology components required to enable safe routine BVLOS operations,” Unifly VP and General Manager Laurent Huenaerts said. “The vision and concrete implementation plan that SkySensus defined to enable complex operations will benefit not only Transport Canada and NAV CANADA, but also every RPAS operator willing to fly BVLOS in Canada in the future.”

The RTM selection committee is a joint government and industry group co-led by Transport Canada and NAV CANADA. It was established to create a roadmap for the development of RTM services and to develop an ecosystem of RTM services that can safely manage the integration of drones into Canadian airspace.

With features like RPAS tracking, remote identification, detect-and-avoid, and conflict resolution, these new technologies and RTM services will be introduced and rolled-out in an effort to fully integrate drone traffic into the nation’s air traffic management system.

“This is a significant win for SkySensus, to be singled out by the selection committee to contribute to the RTM trials is immense for SkySensus and the entire RPAS community” said Blair Boyd, SkySensus Program Manager at Peraton Canada. “The RTM services trials complement our current project focus on the BVLOS enablers of airworthiness, detect and avoid solutions and data analytics, all toward the development for safe RPAS operations to enable commercialization.”

Conducting several simultaneous RPAS flights, SkySensus has successfully completed Phase I of the RTM drone trials at the Foremost UAS Test Range in southern Alberta last month. Phase II of the RTM trials is planned for early spring of 2021.