Nunavut company now hawking a high-end unmanned helicopter

Keane Sudlovenick, a drone operator trained by Arctic UAV, stands with the Ukpik HEF32 in Iqaluit. The Nunavut-based company recently signed a distribution agreement to sell the unmanned helicopter system in Canada, Greenland and Alaska. (PHOTO COURTESY ARCTIC UAV)

High Eye’s CEO, Joost de Ruiter, and Eli Turk, Arctic UAV’s president of commercial sales, seen at High Eye’s factory in Holland. (PHOTO COURTESY ARCTIC UAV)

Nunavut’s Arctic UAV is no longer just operating drones and training people to fly the remote-controlled machines. It’s now also selling the gadgets, having obtained distribution rights to sell a high-powered unmanned helicopter to Canada, Greenland and Alaska.

Alas, it’s unlikely the Ukpik HEF32 will become a Christmas present for any Nunavut children this year. This gas-powered machine is able to stay aloft for 4.5 hours, carry a five-kilogram payload and fly 50 kilometres from its operator while transmitting high-definition video, but this all comes at a steep price, which starts above $300,000.

“These are not toys,” said CEO Kirt Ejesiak of Iqaluit. “They’re serious systems.”

The Ukpik HEF32 could potentially be used in Nunavut and other northern jurisdictions to assist with mineral exploration, offshore fisheries, search-and-rescue operations and wildlife surveys, said Ejesiak.

Compared to operating a manned helicopter, “it’s safer, the costs are cheaper, I think you get better imagery, and you’re employing folks from up north,” he said. “And we’re offering a world-class product—you don’t see that often in the North.”

The drone is built by a Dutch manufacturer named High Eye. Ejesiak said his company spent about a year looking for a machine that met their needs. They ended up being impressed by High Eye’s willingness to customize the drone to withstand northern conditions.

“We spent a lot of time saying, ‘Can you add skids so this thing doesn’t sink into the snow? Can you change the lighting? Can you add this kind of feature that would be useful for us?’” said Ejesiak. “And they were very open. So we spent a lot of time on them. We liked their product so much, we said, ‘Can we be your distributor in Canada, Alaska and Greenland?’ So we struck a deal.”

A gas-powered drone eliminates the problem of batteries dying quickly in cold temperatures, and allows for considerably longer flights than would otherwise be possible. Most battery-operated drones are only able to fly for less than an hour on a single charge, and are limited to a range of several kilometres, said Ejesiak.

Currently, federal regulations forbid drones flying beyond the line of sight, which is typically about half a kilometre. But Ejesiak said that acquiring the Ukpik HEF32 will help his company prepare for the day when these rules are relaxed.

And Arctic UAV is also helping to establish these rules—in July, the company won a two-year contract with Transport Canada to help formulate future regulations for drones.

The company also plans to create a drone testing centre outside Iqaluit in mid-2018. “We want other companies to call us up and ask, ‘Can you test our camera in Arctic conditions? Can you test our lights, our landing system, our engines?’” said Ejesiak. “Just being in the service industry is great, but we’re offering much more.”

The number of uses for drones continues to expand. For instance, drone imagery can help calculate how much fill is needed to build a new subdivision.

Arctic UAV did just that for Qikiqtaaluk Corp., which wants to build a subdivision on Inuit-owned lands northeast of Iqaluit’s Federal Road, Ejesiak said. And the company is now helping to survey a parcel where a new federal daycare is planned.

“That kind of planning is really changing how municipalities and governments are preparing for projects,” said Ejesiak.

Another opportunity may present itself with Ottawa’s plans to spend just shy of $30 million to build an aerial surveillance centre in Iqaluit, aimed to improve oil-spill prevention.

Arctic UAV started up in January 2016 with the help of a $250,000 strategic investment from the Government of Nunavut. It has gone on to train eight pilots, said Ejesiak. Among them is Keane Sudlovenick who, at 19, Arctic UAV says, is both the youngest and the most experienced drone pilot in the Arctic.

“The whole company is really built on using local pilots, with some pretty cool technology that we can train folks up north to use and actually have a meaningful career,” said Ejesiak, “instead of the whole model of going up north and bringing everything, all the products and services, in. We wanted to try something different.”