Vancouver-based EarthDaily Analytics Corp. says it's eyeing additional federal government contracts, especially for work related to defence and security, after securing a $2.23-million contract with Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC).
The company uses its earth-orbiting satellites to take pictures of the earth to monitor land and coastal areas and to track subtle changes occurring on the planet's surface. The resulting images, data and analytics can help companies in the natural resources, insurance and defence sectors model and manage risks and operations.
"Defence is one of the big market sectors that we are very interested in," Chris Rampersad, senior vice-president, AI and analytics, at EarthDaily, said. "While the United States has always had a strong defence focus, we're seeing that same trend play out in different countries, especially Canada and Europe."
Canada is accelerating its efforts to boost national security and build up the country's defence industrial capacity through its defence industrial strategy announced in February, which opened up $180 billion in defence procurement opportunities and $290 billion in defence-related capital investment opportunities over the next 10 years.
EarthDaily, which was founded in 2021 by U.S. private-equity firm Antarctica Capital LLC using key assets purchased from now-defunct Canadian satellite imaging and geoanalytics company Urthecast Corp., on Wednesday said it will lead research and development for DRDC's space-based monitoring, alerts and tactical awareness project known as SMATAK, which is funded through the Canadian Safety and Security Program.
Specifically, the company will explore how it can use artificial intelligence and geospatial technologies to enhance satellite data to improve border monitoring capabilities for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).
Through the project, the company is aiming to build the first-ever global satellite constellation that can monitor Canada's entire border on a daily basis, Rampersad said. Last month, it launched its eighth satellite via a Space Exploration Technologies Corp. rocket.
"The old way of doing this would be to purchase satellite images and scour through them to find things with analysts," Rampersad said.
But he said the company's newer satellites equipped with AI and cloud-based processing allow it to interpret millions or billions of pixels faster and more reliably and feed that analysis to RCMP officers at all levels.
For example, the company will process images from the satellite, run its AI models and feed the resulting analysis into a system mimicking the RCMP's own operational tools.