Kognitiv Spark Technology Will Help Maintain And Repair Drones In Canada’s North
FREDERICTON – Drones are being introduced to a vast, remote area of Canada’s north to help with assessing things like whether the ice is safe for hunting or recreational use. And a Fredericton company is going to help maintain and fix them with advanced technology that connects experts thousands of miles away with technicians in the field.
“They’re going to be using [drones] for various things,” said Rodney McAffee, vice-president of Energy and Industrial Engineering with Kognitiv Spark.
“They might be assessing the ice margin for safety for hunters or recreational use. You can just fly over [the ice] with the drone and get the video and look it over in real time, or record it and look at it later.”
The unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) will be operated in the field through a partnership between LOOKNorth and Igutchaq UAV, a professional UAV and GIS services company based in Inuvik, Northwest Territories.
Igutchaq UAV is training and facilitating the certification of UAV pilots from communities in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region and the Gwich’in Settlement Area. The services offered by Igutchaq UAV will directly support regional priorities ranging from the effects of climate change on Inuvialuit and Gwich’in culture to sovereignty and food security.
It’s hard enough deploying a sophisticated piece of technology like a drone in the remote areas. But the logistics of flying in technicians to do maintenance and repairs makes the prospect even more difficult.
“The experts reside in Europe,” said McAffee in a recent interview with Huddle. “From a maintenance perspective or if there’s a breakdown or problems if you can’t resolve it over the phone with the people in Inuvik, or somewhere else in northern Canada, maybe the people in Europe would have to fly over. That’s where our solution comes in.”
Kognitiv Spark’s RemoteSpark technology, designed for use with the Microsoft HoloLens, will be used to facilitate repairs and maintenance.
“People in Inuvik can put on the HoloLens and then connect with the experts in Europe and then in a meaningful way interact and troubleshoot or do routine maintenance or repairs,” said McAffee.
Neil Cater, LOOKNorth Project Manager, says Kognitive Spark’s technology makes utilizing UAVs in remote areas more feasible.
“The costs and logistics of training and maintenance support can be considerable when deploying technology in Northern and remote locations,” said Cater in a release. “RemoteSpark can reduce the need for costly travel and lead to more cost-effective remote operations.”
Kognitiv Spark hopes this partnership creates more opportunities in remote areas where technical support is a distant centre.
“You could envision that there’s a water treatment menu plant somewhere up north which inevitably was probably designed in a place like Toronto,” said McAffee. “If there are any issues with it, are you going to have to send someone from Toronto up to the site, or can you do it remotely?”
“Our solution is ideally suited to connecting people in very remote areas to experts somewhere else. We see this as a really good opportunity for more deployments up in the north.”