Grant: CCI Applied Research and Development Grants

ING Robotic Aviation is a manufacturer of a complete product line of professional drones. The latest addition to the line is the Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) drone. The drones can be used for Surveillance, Monitoring, Inspection of roads, bridges, railways, electrical networks, telecommunications towers, and for military applications. The Center of Expertise in Smart Prototyping (CEPI) of La Cité in Ottawa which will do the applied research on this project has expertise in artificial intelligence (AI). This proposal aims to develop a prototype for Drone Platooning. The concept of Drone Platooning refers to a group of autonomous drones collaborating to fulfill a mission. With the emergence of VTOL drones with enhanced capabilities, missions become more complex and demanding, requiring them to collaborate. In our project, a drone working with 4 other drones can be sent for a Search & Rescue mission in the aftermath of a natural disaster for example. All the drones are autonomous but collaborate in a Platoon formation to conduct surveillance, identify targets (i.e people in need of help), and communicate their location to the ground station which will dispatch a rescue team. Our project consists of a proof-of-concept of advanced Deep Machine Learning techniques to be deployed in each drone and applied to the coordination of the drone platoon in the execution of their mission. Validation will be done in a flight simulator. At the end of the project, the main benefit for ING Robotic Aviation would be knowledge and technology they could integrate in their drones which would be competitive differentiators on the market. The benefit for the students involved in this project would be training in very advanced engineering techniques. The benefit for Canada and Canadians would be a drone platoon capable of performing, for example, Search & Rescue of people following an earthquake or a flooding in difficult-to-reach areas.