Tackling The Line-of-Sight Obstacle

Tackling The Line-of-Sight Obstacle

line-of-sight

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Solutions for navigating drones beyond the visual line-of-sight (BVLOS) has been the target of many research and development efforts. Drone Delivery Canada (DDC) has signed a sponsored research and collaboration agreement with Canada’s University of Toronto and Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC) to jointly develop a vision-based navigation solution for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) or drones.

According to aerospace-technology.com, the solution, which aims to provide safe navigation while reducing dependency on GPS technology, will be developed under the collaborative research and development granting program of Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).

Once developed, the auto-pilot beyond visual line-of-sight technology will be integrated into DDC’s auto-pilot system. DRDC and DDC will jointly fund the project, which will be co-led by University of Toronto’s Institute of Aerospace Studies (UTIAS) professor Angela Schoellig and professor Tim Barfoot.

DDC CTO Paul Benedetto said: “We’re working on this next-generation BVLOS drone technology with some of Canada’s smartest minds. This collaboration will greatly accelerate our development of vision-based navigation technology for our FLYTE software management and auto-pilot systems required for commercialisation.”