MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates has been awarded a five-year contract valued at CA$5 million with National Defence to provide support for the Raven-B unmanned aerial surveillance solution acquired by the government in October 2013.
The contract includes options for incremental activities up to an additional CA$11 million.
In October, MDA was awarded an $11.3 million contract from National Defence to provide the Canadian Army with the hand-launched remote-controlled Raven-B, a small UAV built by AeroVironment of California. The contract included the delivery of the Raven, MDA’s full-motion video exploitation tools, training, maintenance, and support services.
The agreement could also be significant for the Royal Canadian Navy. In exploring its unmanned systems options, the navy has leveraged the army’s existing contracts for the Boeing Insitu ScanEagle over the past four years to demonstrate the capability on three of the deployed Halifax-class frigates. In a in November, a RCN officer said the navy would likely seek to “leverage into that” as well.