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AVSS Awarded $1.1 Million Contract from Government of Canada

Published: février 17, 2022

AVSS, a Canadian aerospace manufacturer that develops parachute recovery systems, flight termination systems, and payload precision delivery systems, is pleased to announce they have been awarded a contract from the Government of Canada to test and evaluate the PPDS.

The contract was awarded under the Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) Testing Stream. This program enables Canadian government organizations to test out Canadian innovations and evaluate the technology under their own operational settings. After testing, the program also features a direct sales option, Pathway to Commercialization, for other government organizations to purchase up to $8 Million of the PPDS without procurement competition for three years.

PPDS Use Case

The PPDS is a dual-use technology that enables drones, helicopters, and small airplanes to deliver critical supplies to hard-to-reach destinations where landing and take-off of an aircraft is not ideal. The PPDS is capable of autonomously reaching within 3 meters of an intended landing zone. This technology can be used for delivering medical kits for Search and Rescue operations or Meal, Ready to Eat field rations to firefighters in a Wildfire.

Transport Canada, Indigenous Services Canada, and 3 Points in Space Media will be testing and evaluating the PPDS for last-mile delivery in Northern Canada. The specific use case that is being evaluated is for drone delivery to a First Nation community that does not have the expensive infrastructure for other types of drone delivery operations.

“AVSS has been developing this technology for several years and is excited to validate the system’s performance under harsh environmental conditions”, says Josh Ogden, CEO of AVSS. “When we began developing the PPDS’s autonomous guided system to prevent drone parachutes from drifting into traffic and trees, we realized that there was a major gap in the current Joint Precision Airdrop Systems (JPADS). This contract validates our assumptions and opens up a new market for our products.”

PPDS Integration

In addition to supplying 100 PPDS units in March, AVSS was also tasked with integrating the PPDS into four commercial drones. The integration into the DJI M300 RTK, DJI M600, Skyfront Perimeter 8, and Indro Wayfinder/FreeFly Systems Alta X were selected to demonstrate the flexibility in adopting the PPDS.

PPDS Testing Video

For more information about the PPDS, a testing video is available at https://youtu.be/LnIfR8hVIVo