Canadian aerospace company Aerial Vehicle Safety Solutions (AVSS) says the Government of Canada has awarded it a significant new contract. The company’s innovative drone safety tech stack, Guided Parachute Recovery System (GPRS) and Real-Time Intelligence Landing Software (RILS), is set to be tested against conventional drone parachute systems following integration with aerial logistics platforms DroneUp and Blueflite.
More specifically, the AVSS systems will be integrated into DroneUp’s Prism Sky platform, which is used for last-mile delivery for Walmart, and Blueflite’s Cobalt 46 platform. Come February 2024, the Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC) and Mohawk College’s Unmanned and Remote Sensing Innovation Centre will test the system’s capabilities compared to an unguided Parachute Recovery System (PRS).
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Key performance metrics will be determined by inducing failure scenarios from ASTM F3322, the gold standard of parachute recovery system testing. There will be a focus on evaluating glide ratio performance, crosswind kinetic energy reduction, and dynamic safe landing zone selection.
The GPRS developed by AVSS is hardware that enables the detection of a drone failure and the safe landing of the drone with guided controls. The system plays a critical role in reducing the kinetic energy from crosswinds and helps reduce the critical area of a failure event.
Josh Ogden, CEO of AVSS, points out that though the topic is seldom discussed in the drone industry, unguided parachutes can drastically exceed kinetic energy thresholds set by civil aviation authorities when average wind speeds and gusts are calculated for operating limitations. As such, the innovation also aims to mitigate the unintended consequence of a parachute deployment that drifts into unideal locations, such as in a tree, on a highway, or in a substation.
AVSS promises to share the testing results from the contract with industry and regulatory stakeholders alike.
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