Fifteen Canadian university teams will compete in a drone contest this weekend in Alma, in the province of Quebec. Their unmanned flying devices will have to assess a simulated train wreck and explosion similar to the disaster that levelled downtown Lac-Mégantic and killed 47 people on July 6, 2013.
The drones will be required to collect information about the amount of fuel leaked, the damage done to buildings and farm fields, infrastructure and people who have been injured. The goal is to increase awareness of in drones among universities and to encourage engineers to go on to work in the field or start their own companies.
‘Canada…a significant player’
“Canada is a significant player (in the drone industry),” says Charles Vidal, director of ING Robotic Aviation and an organizer of the competition. “Since it’s been possible to legally operate drones in Canada for several years—it’s actually possible to do commercial work—and consequently there’s various service providers as well as manufacturers of drones.”
ListenCanada also has a vast territory with pipelines and power lines that require monitoring and Vidal says drones are ideally suited for that kind of application.
‘Cheaper, greener, safer’
“These flying robots will be used more and more,” says Vidal. “We see an exponential growth in the usage of drones and basically any application that simply requires an eye in the sky, for example power line monitoring, agriculture, mapping, anything like that…it becomes cheaper, greener, safer and more effective.”
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