About CfAR
At UVIC CfAR we catalyze innovation and develop unmanned aerial systems (UAS) for military, commercial and research applications. The design, development, manufacturing and flight testing of scaled air-vehicle demonstrators allows for the low-cost opportunity to evaluate vehicle performance, novel aircraft configurations and emerging technologies in a reduced risk environment. Unique and cutting edge payloads can be vindicated by placing aboard a range of already flight-proved fixed wing aircraft and multirotors built by UVIC CfAR.
Aircraft Manufacturing and Integration Workshop
The workshop at UVIC CFAR includes a multitude of equipment for research RPAS as well as experimental apparatus. Large tooling for aircraft composite structures can be created using the 3-axis CNC router, and rapid-prototyping of aircraft parts is possible with our range of 3D printers. UVIC CfAR utilizes two types of 3D printing technology: FDM and SLA, which allow for rapid prototyping ability as well as the ability to create functional finished parts from engineering materials.
Electronics and Instrumentations Lab
The Electronics and Instrumentation Lab addresses unique problems raised by different projects that have no off-the-shelf component solutions. Custom PCB designs, PCB manufacturing, harness manufacturing, microcontroller programming, short and long range radio communications are some of the in-house development capabilities. The management of flight control systems on the autonomous air vehicles requires the design and development of specialized and unique PCB designs for integration with the autopilot sub-systems
Flight Simulation and Flight Sciences Lab
The Flight Simulation and Flight Sciences Laboratory is responsible for the extensive development, testing, and tuning of complex flight control systems used on the RPAS at UVIC CFAR. Together with real-time HWIL testing, CFAR engineers work to optimize the performance of the aircraft, and are actively researching areas of flight path planning using deep-learning, multi-agent control and sense-and-avoid object avoidance technologies.