President's Welcome Message

Welcome to UVS Canada - the focal point for Unmanned Vehicle Systems in Canada. We are a Canadian-registered not-for-profit organization representing the interests of the UVS community. This includes industry, academia, government and other interested persons. Our objectives are threefold:

• To identify the community to itself.
• To identify the community to Canadians.
• To identify the community to the rest of the world.

The technology that enables successful unmanned vehicle systems has matured dramatically. Canadians continue to lead the sector with notable successes. MD Robotics and the Canadarm 2 on the International Space Station and CDL Systems and their Vehicle Control System at the heart of the US Army Shadow 200 UAV system are marvelous testaments to the tremendous talents of Canadians to innovate and deliver world-leading solutions. To this point in our history there has been no opportunity for Canadians to easily reach other Canadians working in the same field. UVS Canada is filling that void and helping to create opportunities for even greater success in Canadian UVS ventures.

To help the community identify to itself who the players are and what the latest activities are, a virtual community has been established at http://www.communityzero.com/uvscanada. Here UVS Canada members have the opportunity to interact and share relevant information.

The next gathering of UVS Canada will take place at The Brookstreet Hotel, in Ottawa Ontario on 4-7 November 2008. This years conference will build on huge success of our 2007 event and continues our aim of bringing the community together again from across the public and private sectors as well as from across Canada. We will continue with our secondary objective of educating decision makers on the enormous potential of UVS technologies in both defence and civil applications.

We, as Canadians, are blessed with the second largest country in the world while inhabiting only a small portion of it with our 30 million citizens. Unmanned vehicle systems, whether they fly, swim or crawl, have a role to play in aiding us in caring for and getting the most of out of this magnificent country of ours. UVS Canada aims to help with that vision.

Ian Glenn, President Emeritus UVS Canada