Smart Fleet Systems

Next test of the Canada Niska 1 - how well can it fly in the frigid temperatures of the frozen Canadian north? Of course it does great!

The Canada Niska 1 is an ArduPilot based 2.5m wingspan VTOL hybrid drone designed for long distance ISR, survellancance and inspections. The standard package comes with the awesome SiYI A8 Mini gimbal camera which is great for video and also capable of some fairly good photogrammetry.

Upgraded payloads can include thermal and lidar cameras.

Canada Niska 1-
* 2.4 m wingspan
* MTOW: 7kg
* Payload: 1.2kg
* Min/Max operating temperature -12C / +35C

Build from the best:
CubePilot Cube Orange+ autopilot - because it matters!
CubePilot Here 4 RTK GNSS/GPS
SIYI Technology UniRC7 C2 + FPV radio system
SiYi A8 Mini 4K Gimbal Camera
XingTo / XT Battery solid state lithium batteries

It survived! It was a brisk winter morning, north of Edmonton on the Canadian Prairies. I braved the cold to test my Canada Niska VTOL. This is my story.

When I show people the Canada Niska 1 VTOL drone, the first question I get is "how far can it fly".

The Smart Fleet Canada Niska 1 now has a Safety Assurance Declaration under Transport Canada Standard 922 part 08, 09 and 11 and when flown under standard 923, with a Level 1 Complex Pilot certificate you can fly:
* 7.8 km from the pilot/control station
* 3.7 km from an visual observer
(conditions apply)

This means a circle 14.8km (8 nm) across which is:
* 172 square km
* 42,600 acres
* 66 sections
* 266 quarter sections

Whether this means agricultural inspections and livestock monitoring, safety monitoring, corridor monitoring, mapping and visual data collection, infrastructure inspections, surveillance, or just flying for the pure joy of it, Canada Niska 1 has it covered.

Canada Niska 1 BVLOS Safety Assurance Declaration accepted! The Canada Niska 1 can now be flown BVLOS in Canada with a SAD for Transport Canada Standard 922.08, 09 and 11. DAA is covered by Standard 923 or when flying...

Developed by SmartFleet.systems, the Terrain Avoidance lua applet was officially released as part of ArduPilot.org 4.6.3.

https://youtu.be/FXG97cdQwdg

ArduPilot avoids crashes ArduPilot 4.6.3 now includes my scripted "Terrain Avoidance" as an official lua applet.