As ocean nations with more than 260,000 kilometres of combined coastline, Canada and the United Kingdom share a deep understanding of the blue economy and its potential. Ocean sectors represent highly skilled jobs, clean energy solutions and economic growth.

This new investment, announced between the governments of Canada and the United Kingdom, will help to build blue economy solutions, synergies and trade through the partnership with the aim to help solve ocean technology challenges by connecting innovators from both sides of the Atlantic. The Call for Proposals is in the field of Innovative Perception Capabilities for Uncrewed Maritime Systems.

The Ocean Technology Council of Nova Scotia (OTCNS) announced a non-repayable contribution of $275,000  to support the competition in Canada; Innovate UK is providing $275,000 for the competition in the United Kingdom.

The investments will help bring Canadian and UK small and medium-sized enterprises together to compete in this new ocean tech innovation challenge. Through the competition, transnational teams will work together to develop ways to help uncrewed vessels better navigate the ocean. Two winning teams will each receive $250,000 CAD to implement and demonstrate their proposals. The competition will help create industry-advancing solutions and grow trade through partnerships between ocean tech innovators.

This challenge is open to Canadian small and medium-sized enterprises and UK registered businesses, with proposals due on December 2nd 2022. Winners will be selected in early January 2023. 

The Challenge  

To develop an innovative modular, extensible, and adaptable perception solution that can be used for USVs and/or UUVs of different sizes and regulatory regimes, and be suitable for diverse:

• Vessel specific control, monitoring & support functions (e.g. propulsion, steering)

• Sensing suites appropriate for the environment(s) of operations (e.g. cameras, AIS, DVL, USBL)

• Mission management systems (e.g. control software for the on-board management and execution of the overall mission and operation of the USV/UUV)

• Communication systems (e.g. radio, cellular, satellite, acoustic)

Of particular focus will be "perception solutions" supporting real-time perception at-the-edge, with stringent size, weight, and power (SWaP) constraints, for various autonomy levels. 

The competition offers grant funding of $500,000 CDN in total.

Interested participants will be asked to submit proposals that address a specific problem statement. These proposals will be evaluated by an independent panel and interviews may be required - applicants must be available for possible interviews on 13th - 16th  December 2022. Two winning proposals will be chosen.

For more information click here.