On Nov. 6, Drone Delivery Canada successfully completed Phase Three of its Automated External Defibrillator (AED) On The Fly project with Peel Region Paramedic Services and Sunnybrook Centre for Prehospital Medicine. DDC announced 100 percent successful Phase One and Phase Two testing in June 2019 and July 2020, respectively. During Phase Three, the Sparrow drone, with its cargo drop capability and audio announcement system, was utilized to drop an AED where a designated untrained (lay) bystander would then retrieve the AED and apply it to a simulated cardiac arrest patient in a rural environment.  During testing, response time to drop, retrieve and apply an AED, and physiological and psychological human factors in a stressful situation were all measured.

Aerospace technology company Sagetech Avionics and UAS technology company Kraus Hamdani have announced that they have completed the integration of Sagetech’s UAV transponders with ArduPilot, a leading open source autopilot. The new integration was successfully tested onboard the K1000 Ultra Long Endurance (K1000ULE) UAV, which is the world’s longest endurance, fully electric aircraft in its size and weight category. “We’re thrilled to provide UAV innovators like Kraus Hamdani with reliable, integrated transponders for new platforms,” says Sagetech Avionics CEO Tom Furey.

Drone Delivery Canada (DDC) has provided an update on the Condor drone from successful testing at the Alma, Quebec Unmanned Aerial System Centre of Excellence. On Sept. 1, DDC announced that it had successfully tested several critical aspects of the Condor, including triple-redundant communications system (satellite, cellular, 900MHz RF); triple-redundant navigational guidance system; triple-redundant autopilot system; monitoring of unmanned flights remotely from DDC’s Operations Control Centre in Vaughan, Ontario; general flight stability and performance; and fuel consumption characteristics.

On Thursday, Oct. 22, the Smart Belt Coalition (SBC) conducted an automated truck platooning demonstration that began in Pittsburgh and ended in Michigan. A collaboration between the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT), transportation agencies in Ohio and Pennsylvania, and academic institutions in all three states, the SBC partnered with Locomation, the provider of the world’s first trucking technology platform to offer human-guided autonomous convoying, to complete the demonstration. The SBC and Locomation demonstrated the agency coordination and administrative and procedural requirements necessary for a truck platooning system to operate continuously through the three states.