Unmanned and Remote Sensing Innovation Centre (URSIC)

Helping You Navigate and Adopt New Technology

Remote sensing is transforming industries like energy, agriculture, and manufacturing. Could it transform your organization?

At URSIC, we specialize in research and development services that help industry, municipalities and conservation areas unlock the power of remote sensing when used in conjunction with drones, rovers, and unmanned boats. Our team works closely with organizations to deliver customized solutions that drive better data collection, streamlined workflows, and safer operations. Ready to innovate? Partner with URSIC to explore how remote sensing can elevate your business.

Services

Advanced Inspection Processes

Traditional surveying methods can be slow and costly. With URSIC as your research partner, you can leverage unmanned systems and advanced sensors—such as LiDAR, multispectral, and thermal imaging—for efficient aerial, ground, and bathymetric surveys. These technologies allow you to collect rapid, cost-effective data, enhancing your asset inspection and monitoring processes, including leveraging digital twins.

Unlock Industry-Leading Technologies

New Technology Deployment

Partnering with URSIC accelerates your transition from concept to operational solutions. With our expertise and specialized equipment, we help you generate actionable data for tasks like long-range inspection, resource mapping, and rapid maintenance. This enables you to address challenges using cutting-edge technology that’s been rigorously tested and validated- reducing your risk of innovation.

Reduce Risk

Testing and Validation

Developing a new product or technology? Leverage URSIC’s expertise to test and deploy your unmanned and remote sensing hardware or software solutions in both lab and operational settings. Whether it is testing in extreme weather situations or running multiple use cases, we verify its optimal performance, helping you bring your innovations to market with confidence and efficiency while meeting regulatory standards.

Explore New Technologies

What Happens at URSIC

Our focus on applied research means helping you solve problems through the use of new technology. URSIC’s assets include a wide range of industry-leading unmanned and remotely piloted aircraft systems that offer a wide range of capabilities to serve most industry use cases, including visual line-of-sight (VLOS), and beyond visual line-of-sight operations (BVLOS).

Helping Innovation Take Flight Since 2017

URSIC is the largest research facility in Ontario focused on the integration of remote sensing with unmanned technologies. Since our founding in 2017, we’ve helped over 70 organizations in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area and across Canada harness the power of cutting-edge unmanned technologies.

Whether it’s drones, terrestrial robots, autonomous boats, or sensors like LiDAR and photogrammetry scanners, we provide the expertise to help you adopt and scale these innovations. We’re also proud to have launched the NSERC-supported Canadian Unmanned and Remote Systems Innovation Network (CURSIN) to support country-wide adoption of this technology.

Industry-Leading Equipment

URSIC is home to Ontario’s largest collection of unmanned and remote sensing technology dedicated to research and development.

Scanning equipment used by the URSIC team includes:

DJI Matrice M600, M300, M210
DJI Agras T10
Skydio 2+
DJI Mavic 2 (Enterprise & Zoom), Mavic Pro
DJI Phantom 4 Pro v2, Phantom 4 Pro
DJI FPV
Parrot Anafi
DJI Mini, Mini 2
Blue Vigil Tether
Parachute Recovery Systems: M300, M600
Full suite of micro drones for training
Emesent Hovermap (SLAM)
Phoenix LiDAR Scout 32E
Leica P20 and Leica BLK 360
Pix4D viDoc (SLAM)
UgCS Echo Sounder, a drone-mounted sonar system
Hydromagic processing software.

Excellence Through Collaboration

We collaborate closely with startups, established companies, and community organizations, offering hands-on solutions to your challenges. By accessing government grants and industry-sponsored projects, we create applied research opportunities that might otherwise seem out of reach.

Solutions That Shape the Future

URSIC helps you navigate regulatory compliance with expert procedure audits and reviews. We also assist you with the application process for Special Flight Operations Certificates (SFOC) with Transport Canada, the governing body for aviation regulations in Canada. Additionally, we support you in implementing standardized competency training and testing for pilots, aligned with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) guidelines.

Confidential Collaboration, Guaranteed

Confidentiality is paramount at URSIC. You retain ownership of your intellectual property, and our team operates as an extension of your team, exploring and testing solutions with a commitment to finding the best fit. See our Commercialization of Intellectual Property Policy Statement.