Over the last six months, Global UAV Technologies Ltd. [UAV-CSE; YRLLF-OTC; YAB2-FSE] has been significantly grow- ing their Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) business. The company is headquartered in Vancouver, BC, with regional offices in Saskatchewan and Ontario. Global UAV Technologies’ stated strategy is to “domi- nate the UAV sector by consolidating a diverse group of companies to create a leading service provider.” The company has managed to do just exactly that; Global UAV Technologies is a company positioned to lead the growing UAV service sector in terms of expertise, development and services.
In December 2016, Global UAV Technologies, through its wholly owned subsidiary Pioneer Aerial Surveys, acquired the world’s first commercially available, UAV-based magnetometer survey system called UAV-MAG TM. The company states that the proprietary survey uses ultra-sensitive magnetic equipment to aid in the discovery of diamonds, gold, silver and other types of deposits. It has also been used on lithium properties.
Pioneer Aerial came out of the gate at a
full sprint – as they flew in excess of 900 line-km in their first full month of opera- tion. They have since gone on to do surveys for a number of junior and mid-tier explora- tion companies as well as majors.
In March 2017, Pioneer Aerial signed an agreement with Abitibi Geophysics, an international geophysics company, to establish a strategic partnership whereby Abitibi and Pioneer Aerial will
Mike Burns, president of Pioneer Aerial, flying a UAV-MAG aeromagnetic survey in Arizona. Photo Courtesy of Global UAV Technologies.
operate on a revenue sharing basis for sur- veys organized by Abitibi. Those surveys will be branded as AeroVisionTM and will use Pioneer Aerial’s UAV-MAGTM system.
Also in December of 2016, Global UAV Technologies announced the strategic acquisition of High Eye Aerial Imaging Ltd., a leading UAV surveying company that is using its fleet of multi rotor and fixed-wing UAVs to provide their clients such products as two dimensional and three dimensional ortho-mosaic images, mapping of remote sites, aerial surveys, volumetric calculations, digital elevation modeling, aerial inspections of areas that are difficult to access, as well as environ- mental assessment and monitoring images.
High Eye recently completed their largest project to date for the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change. The total area covered was ~1,100 hectares. High Eye provided aerial mapping topo- graphical data for 36 km of shoreline in Georgian Bay, Ontario in order to deter- mine the flood hazard limit elevation.
In order to ensure that their subsid- iaries are in good hands, Global UAV Technologies has retained highly special- ized staff in both of the above mentioned companies.
Global UAV Technologies recently reported that its first full quarter that incor- porated the two subsidiaries generated $181,203 of revenue – an impressive start.
In May of this year, Global UAV Technologies further expanded their expertise and services by signing letters of intent with two more companies: Easy SFOC and NOVAerial Robotics.
Easy SFOC is a regulatory consult- ing service that assists clients with the preparation of Special Flight Operation Certificates (SFOCs) for UAV operations
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in Canada. The company describes Easy SFOC as a web-based service that uses a proprietary, interface to collect informa- tion on a client’s site locations, operations, and crew information quickly and effi- ciently. “The client is then provided with full support and guidance along with a customized SFOC application ready to sub- mit to Transport Canada.”
NOVAerial manufactures and designs helicopter UAVs. Jason Springett, President of Global UAV Technologies said about NOVAerial, “We are very excited for the addition of NOVAerial to Global UAV Technologies. NOVAerial is a dynamic com- pany at the forefront of manufacturing, engineering and performance of the rap- idly evolving, enterprise grade helicopter UAV sector...We will now have industry leading holdings in UAV service provid- ers, manufacturing and engineering, and regulations, all of which are experiencing increased growth.”
The company states that the purchase of NOVAerial includes “all the manufactur- ing equipment, designs and specifications, current inventory, existing orders and prototypes of new UAV designs that NOVAerial is currently developing.”
Global UAV Technologies says that NOVAerial’s Procyon 800E, “is quickly becoming renowned for its performance, practical design, high-quality, made in- house components and reliable flight control system.” The Procyon 800E’s compact design and construction make it reliable, easy to maintain and less expensive than similar UAVs. It is ideally suited, the company says, “for complicated and high- performance UAV applications, offering vertical take-off capability, while combin- ing high speeds and long flight times not possible with multirotor UAVs.” NOVAerial Robotics Inc. is run by Robert Lefebvre, a mechanical engineer who is very well respected in the field of robotic aviation and a mentor for Google’s Summer of Code pro- gram. n