Adobe Stock
Why it matters: The Canadian Armed Forces often struggle to adopt promising homegrown technology that can't talk to the systems already in service. Northstar is Calian's attempt to close that gap in a single, permanent test environment, and it's the first physical site in the company's promised national lab network.
Driving the news: Calian Group and Invest Ottawa launched the Northstar Defence Lab on Sept. 29 at GCXpo, the technology demonstration event held at Invest Ottawa's Area X.O complex.
The lab sits at Area X.O's Greenbelt site in Ottawa.
Calian will build and operate it, serving as integrator and orchestrator for partner technologies.
It runs on ATHORA, Calian's interoperability and mission-orchestration platform.
The details: Northstar is meant to let technologies built by different companies, for different platforms and missions, share data securely and operate as one integrated system of systems. Partners will connect new and legacy capabilities, identify interoperability gaps and validate performance before moving systems toward operations.
Founding partners are ADGA, Anvil, Cohere, Evertz Microsystems, Larus, TACTIQL, Tessellate Robotics and 123 Cyber.
Export Development Canada joins as an industry commercialization partner.
Partner expertise spans communications, data fusion, artificial intelligence, cyber, sensing and operational decision support.
The lab will stay open to other companies in the Calian VENTURES network. Calian and Invest Ottawa pitch it as a route for small and medium-sized enterprises to show how their intellectual property fits into larger defence solutions.
What they're saying: Calian says the lab is built to be vendor-neutral.
"Northstar is being designed around the mission, not around any one product or company," said Chris Pogue, president of defence and space at Calian. "It will give defence partners a place to connect legacy and emerging technologies, identify interoperability gaps and validate how the complete system of systems performs in the kind of realistic operational environment that is essential for Canada to move new capabilities toward operations at the pace required."
Patrick Houston, Calian's CEO, tied the lab to the pace of CAF modernization.
"As the Canadian Armed Forces modernizes to meet evolving threats, we are investing in the technologies, companies and collaborative infrastructure needed to move at pace alongside them," Houston said.
Sonya Shorey, president and CEO of Invest Ottawa, framed Northstar as part of a broader push to get Canadian companies to customers and revenue faster.
"Canada's ability to strengthen its sovereignty, security and economic resilience depends on turning homegrown innovation into real-world capability," Shorey said.
By the numbers:
$100 million: initial capital Calian aims to mobilize for C5ISRT capabilities. Northstar is the first facility under that initiative.
Eight: founding industry partners, plus EDC.
One: Northstar is the first of Calian's planned regional defence development labs.
Background: Calian first announced the lab network in January. The company said it would mobilize the funding through Calian VENTURES to accelerate sovereign C5ISRT capabilities: command, control, communications, computers, cyber, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting.
Calian's first VENTURES partnership, announced last November, paired it with TACTIQL, a veteran-owned Canadian company developing ISR software. TACTIQL is now a Northstar founding partner.
The bigger picture: Area X.O already hosts defence testing. Invest Ottawa describes it as an all-weather research and development complex and NATO DIANA test centre, and it runs a separate drone and uncrewed systems test site at Killaloe.
