As drones reshape modern warfare, the Canadian Army races to catch up

As drone-fuelled warfare rages on half a world away in Ukraine, the Canadian Army’s program for rapidly acquiring basic drones is just ramping up.

And the pressure is on for the Canadian Armed Forces to speed up its adoption of drones as the technology changes the nature of modern warfare.

Lt.-Col. Jonathan Penney is a reservist who previously worked in defence manufacturing and now co-ordinates the forces’ Minerva drone program. He said that while the army feels pressure to pick up the pace, it’s focused both on finding the right mix of tech for its current needs and on building up the domestic drone industry.

“The army is really good at adapting and evolving,” he said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

The Minerva program launched a batch of tenders in recent months for a range of new drones – everything from low-cost Arctic surveillance drones for the Canadian Rangers to ground and aerial drones that can conduct cargo supply runs.

“We are figuring out what ‘right’ looks like,” Penney said. “Instead of just jumping in, buying a whole bunch of things that we don’t need, we buy things that can use today and then let the system evolve so that it’s integrated in how we conduct operations.”

The Minerva program operates unlike a typical procurement, which sees the military draft a list of requirements.

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Instead, Minerva launches what it calls “industry challenges” – ongoing projects which task companies with creating prototypes for specific uses. Army personnel will be testing those prototypes until roughly next summer or fall.

Another item the army is currently searching for is a low-cost targeting drone – an aerial spotter that allows artillery crews to hit targets they can’t see.

Penney said it’s safer to rely on an aerial drone for targeting instead of sending a soldier into the field with a set of binoculars and a laser rangefinder.

“If the drone gets shot down, we’ll just send up another one,” he said. “The reduction of risk to our personnel is significant.”

That kind of equipment is easy enough to buy off the shelf – but part of the goal of the Canadian Armed Forces drone program is to build up the domestic drone sector and ensure the tech can be easily absorbed by Canadian military units.

“Does it integrate with our systems and does it exist as-is produced in Canada?” Penney said. “That’s what we’re driving for.”

The army is expected to complete a new wish-list of drones for design and purchase over the next three to four months – including a breaching drone for dealing with ground-based obstacles such as mines.

The Minerva initiative launched roughly a year ago with the goal of quickly scaling up drone use in the army, rather than limiting it to ordering from the U.S. Defence Department’s approved list of drone manufacturers.

Army Commander Lt.-Gen. Michael Wright has said he wants to “flood” Canada’s land forces with drones.

Winning a drone prototype challenge is different from winning a large military production order, however.

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The prototype challenge approach allows National Defence to cover research and development costs early in the process – which should encourage drone makers to take the risk of building prototypes with no guaranteed purchaser. The 15-month Arctic aerial drone challenge, for instance, has a $500,000 maximum funding award.

“Canadian companies, especially those small mid-sized companies that can offer some solutions, don’t really know how the military operates. So when they create a product, it’s not necessarily focused towards some of the things that we need,” Penney said.

“They actually understand things better. So if you’re working in the Arctic, you have big gloves on, it’s understood that you can’t operate with fine motor controls.”

Lt.-Gen. Darcy Molstad has been tasked with overseeing the integration of drones across the entire armed forces. He said in a previous interview the military is starting to approach uncrewed systems more like munitions, rather than traditional equipment or expensive vehicles.

“We have to treat it almost like an expendable commodity versus something that we have to keep in inventory and capitalize the cost over 20 years,” Molstad said. “These things just last a short amount of time.”

Penney said that’s particularly true for drones used by land forces.

“Especially from an army perspective, which will be different from the Air Force perspective, we are looking at … consumables, things that we’re going to use, and if it gets destroyed, fine, we’ll just send in another one,” he said. “Low-cost, high-use, high-value things.”

As Russia tests NATO allies in Europe with repeated drone incursions, Canada’s military is looking for ways to counter the emerging threat.

The Canadian Armed Forces recently put out a separate tender for a counter-aerial drone system that could be deployed at military installations across the country.