Drone program to expand at EIA

Al Stafford — Tue, 16 Jan 2024 16:55:32 +0000

Leduc city council got a glimpse of the future at Monday’s meeting.
Council hear a presentation from Edmonton International Airports on the planned expansion of the drone program at the airport.
EIA has been working with drones for nearly a decade. Leduc and Leduc County are partners in the development of drone deliveries around the facility, and officials are looking to move to phase two.
“While I’m saying this, everything has to go through a NAV Canada and Transport Canada approval process,” Trevor Caswell, Manager of Demand and Product Development at EIA told council.
There are hopes to have approvals in place in the first quarter of 2024.
The expansion plan includes a new 10 kilometre drone route from the airport property to the Akamihk Health Care Clinic just north of downtown Leduc.
“If we think of drones as Swiss Army knives in the air, they can do a lot of things. They can collect data. They can collect it while transporting goods. They can deliver right to remote sites,” Caswell noted. “And having an indigenous partner involved as well is very important and critical for deliveries.”
Phase two also includes testing of BVLOS flying.
“BVLOS stands for Beyond Visual Line of Sight, which means no people are involved. That’s a big hurdle and that could take some time to achieve because that essentially means you’re removing people from the process.”
Looking further into the future, Caswell told council he can envision the use of air taxis which are essentially drones big enough to carry people. There are plans to have those in use at the 2024 Paris Olympics this summer.

Drone program to expand at EIA – d2750

Drone program to expand at EIA