Dumb drones set to become smart with a world first in navigation technology

Demand for commercial drones is growing dramatically --- from an estimated $19.9 billion in 2022 to a projected $57 billion in 2030. And the Autonomous Vehicle (AV) market is projected to grow to more than $13 trillion by 2030. But one of the key challenges for drone and AV manufacturers continues to be finding more-accurate and lower-cost navigational sensors that are essential to enabling this growth.

Drones and AVs rely on sensor technology to navigate. Until recently, much of the technical work on AV navigation has focused on a blend of sensors that have critical limiting factors. Camera, radar, and lidar sensors are all limited by advancements in computer perception, with a huge need for redundancy due to environmental conditions – such as the risk of fog or dirt covering one or more sensors. Another technical challenge is that many types of drones and AVs must operate in demanding and/or hostile environments where GPS is denied and extreme accuracy is essential.

Now a Quebec-based company has developed an inertial optical system that matches the accuracy of navigational sensors used in the aerospace industry at a fraction of the cost. And because these chips do not have any moving parts, they are 10 times more accurate than commercial-grade Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems Inertial Measurement Units (MEMS IMUs) and they enable highly accurate navigation even when GPS signals are not available.

The company behind this new technology, Montreal-based One Silicon Chip Photonics (OSCP), has partnered with French multinational company Thales, which is developing autonomous rail systems and has been testing OSCP's prototype in the field. Using sensors like OSCP's in rail transport will increase vehicle autonomy which --- along with moving block signaling --- has the potential to increase rail capacity by up to 50% and cut energy consumption by 15%, according to Thales.

In addition to rail transport and military applications, drones and AVs are also increasingly being used in agriculture, mining, mapping and survey work, as well as in trucking, delivery and other transport industries.

OSCP has recently secured $1.2 million in seed funding from 7percent Ventures and 2050 Capitol, which will allow it accelerate its growth. This funding supplements earlier grants to OSCP totalling $4.2 million from Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC), Next Generation Manufacturing Canada (NGen) and from Ministère de l'Environnement, de la Lutte contre les changements climatiques, de la Faune et des Parcs (Climate, Wildlife and Parks Division of Quebec Ministry of Environment) under the Technoclimat program. Central to funding has been the potential of the technology to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in autonomous transport as compared with conventional technologies.