Research and Training Program in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

无人机(UAV)在自然资源监测、基础设施检查(管道、铁路)、农业、矿产勘探、新闻以及搜救行动等领域有着广阔的应用前景。这是航空航天行业中最具活力的领域，增长速度比其他任何领域都要快。据预测，无人机行业在未来十年将继续经历强劲增长，在此期间，全球将在新车辆和支持系统上花费近900亿美元(仅在美国就花费820亿美元，并创造10万个新的就业机会)。虽然无人机市场的大部分历史上一直致力于军事和安全应用，但预计增长的大部分将来自民用应用。鉴于加拿大广阔的地理景观(如北极)和自然资源，加拿大商用或民用无人机市场预计将快速增长。加拿大在航空业有着悠久而成功的领导历史。最近出现了几家加拿大公司，在国内和国际不断增长的民用无人机市场上占据主导地位。与其中五家实力雄厚的公司合作，拟议的Industrial Stream NSERC Create计划旨在提供一个专注于无人机的独特研究和培训机会，为研究生提供跨学科研究、创业和领导技能，以推动加拿大航空航天公司在该领域迈向繁荣的未来。来自三所大学的11名教职员工组成了这个项目的学术团队，带来了每个成员的独特专业知识，共同跨越了与多功能无人机平台及其民用应用的设计、开发和运营相关的所有关键科技领域。无人机的战略研究培训创建了一个新的跨学科计划，直接针对加拿大信息和通信技术和自然资源的研究重点。

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) hold great promise for applications as diverse as natural resource monitoring, infrastructure inspection (pipeline, railways), agriculture, mineral exploration, journalism, and search & rescue operations. This is the most vibrant sector of the aerospace industry, growing more quickly than any other segment. It is forecast that the UAV sector will continue to experience strong growth for the next decade, and that, globally, almost US$90 billion will be spent on new vehicles and support systems over that period ($82 billion in the US alone and the creation of 100,000 new jobs). While the majority of the UAV market has historically been dedicated to military and security applications, the bulk of the predicted growth will come from civilian applications. Given Canada's vast geographical landscape (e.g. the Arctic) and natural resources, the Canadian commercial or civil UAV market is expected to grow rapidly. Canada has a long and successful history of leadership in aviation. Several Canadian companies have emerged recently to take leading roles in the growing civilian UAV market, nationally and internationally. Teaming up with five of these strong companies, this proposed Industrial Stream NSERC CREATE program is for a unique research and training opportunity focused on UAVs to give graduate students the interdisciplinary research, entrepreneurial, and leadership skills needed to propel Canadian aerospace companies forward into a prosperous future in this field. The academic team of eleven faculty members from three universities assembled for this program, brings the unique expertise of each member, and collectively spans all key scientific and technological areas related to the design, development, and operation of versatile UAV platforms and their civil applications. The strategic research training in UAVs creates a new interdisciplinary program that directly addresses the Canadian research priorities of Information and Communications Technologies and Natural Resources.