Canadian-made drones may soon be on the front lines of the war in Ukraine thanks to a deal between the Canadian drone company Sentinel R&D and the Kyiv-based Airlogix.
As first reported by The Globe and Mail on Tuesday morning, the joint venture will see Hamilton-based Sentinel working with Ukrainian aerospace and defence tech company Airlogix to manufacture drones in Canada and deploy them in the Russian-Ukrainian war.
“The West is seriously, seriously outgunned en masse in the era of modern warfare.”
A government-to-government arrangement between Ottawa and Kyiv is scheduled to be signed at CANSEC, a defence conference being held in Ottawa this week. It would outline operational scope and intellectual property licensing between the two companies, according to The Globe’s report.
The Globe reports that the scope of the deal, including how many drones will be delivered and on what timeline, hasn’t been determined. However, the drones manufactured by Sentinel will be purchased by the Canadian Commercial Corporation, the federal government-to-government contracting agency, and then donated to Ukraine.
BetaKit reached out to Sentinel for comment on the deal’s specifics; the company said a formal statement would come on Thursday.
West “outgunned” in modern warfare era
Founded in 2023, Sentinel designs and builds modular, unmanned aerial vehicles, more commonly referred to as drones. Speaking at BetaKit’s Most Ambitious town hall on Monday, co-founder and CEO Kath Intson said the company’s genesis is directly linked to the ongoing conflict in Europe.
“Our thesis in this space was generated after 18 months of research in Russian Telegram channels,” Intson said during a conversation with BetaKit reporter Madison McLauchlan. “My CTO masqueraded as a Russian Zala (a Russian-manufactured drone) aerospace executive speaking to Russian commanders, Ukrainian commanders, and the result of his research really highlighted a really, really big problem, specifically in modern warfare.”
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Intson said that while countries like Russia, Iran, and China are producing tens of thousands to millions of autonomous drones and “loitering munitions,” a term referring to weaponized drones equipped with explosive ordinance, NATO and the West have lagged behind in building these types of weapons systems.
“The West is seriously, seriously outgunned en masse in the era of modern warfare,” Intson said. “Our goal is to help NATO build at scale and at mass for this new era of warfare.
New manufacturing facility coming to Canada
Sentinel and Airlogix’s joint venture comes on the heels of Ukraine’s Build with Ukraine initiative. Launched by President Volodymyr Zelensky last June, the initiative aims to diversify Ukraine’s supply chain by increasing Ukraine’s access to manufacturing done far from the war’s frontlines. Doing so would mitigate the risk of Russian attacks on Ukraine’s supply chains.
The drones Sentinel provides will be capable of travelling at up to 180 kilometres per hour, with a range of 500 kilometres. Because Sentinel’s platform maintains interoperability, the fixed-wing drones can be used across the military value chain, from intelligence and surveillance gathering to electronic warfare and counter-drone operations.
BetaKit reached out to Airlogix to inquire about the primary use cases and the benefits Sentinel might bring to the war effort, but we did not immediately receive a response.
In its report, The Globe and Mail states that the two companies will jointly invest in building a new manufacturing facility here in Canada, with Ontario and Alberta as potential locations.
BetaKit’s Prairies reporting is funded in part by YEGAF, a not-for-profit dedicated to amplifying business stories in Alberta.
Image courtesy Lilac for BetaKit.