Building on an initial $50-million investment, Dominion is developing a fully integrated, sovereign UAS solution with a world-class advisory board to support critical defense and aerospace requirements.
In March, we made an initial $50-million investment to build Dominion Scout, Canada's first sovereign Autonomous Collaborative Platform (ACP): an uncrewed aircraft that extends our reach and mass across the Arctic. We're on track for the first flight within 24 to 30 months, with more to say this fall about a partnership that will shape how Dominion Scout gets built.
Four months on, here's the progress on Dominion Scout.
- We have built a sovereign, non-ITAR supply chain for aerospace and autonomy and engaged regularly with Canada’s leading companies in these sectors.
- We have conducted detailed operational research to inform the operational use cases and design requirements for ACP.
- We are building a sovereign drone coalition with Canadian industry partners to offer the Government of Canada a range of fully integrated, sovereign UAS solutions across size classes, all enabled by Dominion’s proprietary mission autonomy stack.
- We have conducted dozens of briefings with key government stakeholders to align with emerging CAF requirements.
- We are building and continually improving an options-analysis tool that translates Arctic constraints into design decisions. It trades the factors that shape a High Arctic platform — intermittent satellite coverage, cold-soak and anti-icing needs, and the weight of ruggedized gear for unimproved runways — and shows how each drives range, powerplant sizing, and payload, so we size options against the environment from the start rather than inheriting the costs of a temperate design.
- We are optimizing AuraSim, Dominion’s sovereign, physics-based simulation environment, to test ACP autonomy and build operator trust. AuraSim exercises the autonomy stack across full mission sets in contested Arctic conditions before anything flies. Because a live pilot can fly alongside a virtual ACP and watch it sense and decide, operators gain confidence through repeated exposure while we build evidence that the autonomy behaves as intended.
Introducing our ACP advisory board
We’re honoured to have some of the country’s most experienced pilots and aerospace experts supporting our work on Dominion Scout and helping us deliver Canada’s first sovereign ACP capability.
- General (Ret’d) Tom Lawson served as Chief of the Defence Staff and has decades of leadership experience in NORAD. His perspective bridges national operational requirements with allied interoperability.
- Colonel (Ret’d) Chris Hadfield, a former astronaut, RCAF fighter pilot, engineer, and commander of the International Space Station, brings a unique perspective to high-risk operational environments, systems integration, and human-machine teaming.
- Lieutenant Colonel (Ret’d) Billie Flynn, a former RCAF tactical fighter pilot and test pilot, is a globally respected expert in advanced air combat. He has flown over 70 types of aircraft and served as a lead experimental test pilot on the F-35 program.
- Cameron Robertson, director of engineering at Aqua Satellite, brings deep experience in aerospace, flight systems, and advanced hardware development. He’s previously held senior engineering leadership roles at Our Next Energy, Kitty Hawk, and AeroVelo.
- Wing Commander (Ret’d) Dave Lohse, a former Royal Australian Air Force fighter pilot, is the CEO of ITPS, where he trains aircrew against realistic adversary tactics. He adds a practical understanding of how to integrate emerging technologies into real-world operational contexts.
Our advisors are providing valuable insight throughout our CONOPS and war-gaming phase. We’ll soon begin virtual prototyping by flying competing Dominion Scout designs against each other.