In a shielded lab at the University of Alberta, researchers in Ashwin Iyer’s electrical and computer engineering lab successfully jammed the GPS of a high-tech drone.
The drone was placed inside an anechoic chamber, a room designed to absorb sound and electromagnetic waves. When the team checked the drone’s navigational terminal outside the chamber, it pinpointed its location as the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris — more than 7,000 kilometres from where it actually was — with 99.9 per cent certainty.
“My mind just starts running with how much we could be doing in there to test drones in situations where there is no GPS,” says Jamie Fitzpatrick, a former Canadian Special Operations officer and now business development lead at Lockheed Martin, where he oversees small unmanned aerial systems.
“We’re a business, and we specialize in the speed at which we innovate. Sometimes that means we build something first; that’s our mindset. But our relationship with the U of A allows our engineers to better understand the vulnerabilities of these systems. Then we can take that knowledge, extrapolate it and do the magic that we do best,” he says.
One of the challenges for a company like Lockheed Martin is the rapid manufacturing and deployment of robust uncrewed platforms — or drones — in high-need areas.
“You can’t carry parts into the field,” says James Hogan, who co-leads the U of A’s Centre for Applied Research in Defence and Dual-use Technologies (CARDD-Tech) alongside engineering colleague Iyer. “You want to be able to embed the electronic circuits on a platform, print around it, assemble it quickly and send it out.”
The U of A’s role in the Lockheed Martin collaboration is to provide the technical expertise and secure environments needed to solve that problem, specifically through 3D printing and advanced manufacturing. With a focus on dual-use technologies, innovations developed at CARDD-Tech serve both military and civilian applications.
Hogan emphasizes that the university’s reputation as a trusted platform is central to the partnership. With more than 50 professors and students working on $25 million worth of projects, the U of A offers secure research environments and a vetted team of experts.
“We’re a top university in Canada; people trust us,” Hogan says. “We’re doing this for Canada in Alberta to support and protect Canadians, to uphold our Arctic sovereignty and to contribute to economic resilience.”
With Canada set to spend $150 billion annually on defence, Fitzpatrick sees an opportunity to do even more.
Using funds — known as offsets — normally built into defence contracts that require companies to invest in Canada, Fitzpatrick aims to position the U of A and Lockheed Martin at the centre of a long-term ecosystem supporting small Canadian businesses that he believes already exist in this space.
“There’s a real need and want for these types of businesses in Canada. What’s been missing is the R&D and manufacturing base to scale,” he says. “We can give small businesses the technology they need to be competitive in the market against U.S. or European companies that have been in this space for decades.”
Beyond the U of A’s commitment to understanding the needs of military personnel, Fitzpatrick says what truly drew Lockheed Martin to CARDD-Tech was its potential for dual-use applications.
“Dual-use applications diversify the technology,” he explains. “They allow startups to transition into other industries and expand the province’s economic portfolio and workforce.
“We’re really excited to have a university that shares this vision and is so open to working with us to make it a reality here in Alberta.”
As Canada prepares to significantly ramp up defence spending, the partnership between the U of A and industry leaders like Lockheed Martin stands at the forefront of building a sovereign defence supply chain.
“Canada has a historic opportunity in front of it to meet its obligations to NATO and to its own people for sovereignty and Arctic protection,” says Hogan, who adds the university is the “glue” that connects the end-users to the Canadian Armed Forces, to industry that innovates and to the community partners who benefit from or support it.
“Defence contractors like Lockheed Martin are looking to the U of A to provide technical expertise in secure environments. Being able to innovate in secure laboratories, with vetted researchers and students, is important in this overall ecosystem for defence innovation.”
