Innovative Irish company Squadron Six Aerospace is an Irish company focused on developing drone swarm and immersive control solutions for Search and Rescue (SAR) operations. IMaR Technology Gateway, through the Enterprise Ireland Innovation Voucher programme, supported Squadron Six Aerospace on four vouchers over six years, in its development work.
From originally implementing an off-the-shelf flight controller system to developing mesh and encrypted mesh for communication, our latest work enables the use of vision over optic fibre.
Innovation Process
For video streaming and to make drones safer in the presence of flammable gas and immune to electromagnetic interference and connectivity issues, Squadron Six identified fibre-optic communication between a drone and its ground station as a research topic. IMaR identified and tested a detailed method of achieving fibre-optic communication from a modern drone control module (a Pixhawk 6C) to a ground station computer. This is also useful for “first person view (FPV)” low-latency live transmission, immersive drone control.
The Squadron Six Aerospace & IMAR Technology Gateway partnership
IMaR has provided four detailed state-of-the-art reports to Squadron Six Aerospace as the basis for custom drone development. The evolution was from off-the-shelf flight control systems, through mesh communication configuration strategies and kernel building methods, to encrypted mesh and alternative build mechanisms. The fourth voucher provided detailed information on how to achieve communication to a drone over a fibre-optic cable. Weekly meetings and joint archived chat records provided continuous knowledge transfer over the duration of each project.
Testimonial
“The strategic solution that the IMaR Technology Gateway presented to Squadron Six Aerospace has enabled the company to build a significant body of knowledge that is now being realised in their test lab in the form of their drone swarm solution called “Drone Team Six”. In 2019 “Squadron Six Aerospace” was selected for second place in the global Galileo Masters GNSS special prize category sponsored by the German Ministry for Transport and Digital Infrastructure. In 2020 Squadron Six Aerospace expanded its research operations into the UK when it became a member of the South West Regional Defence and Security Cluster (SWRDSC) and also the UK Meta-materials Special Interest Group (SIG).”
In 2025 Squadron Six Aerospace gave a demo of their stealth meta-material and drone swarm lab kit at the NATO defence innovation hub in the UK.”
Kevin Doyle, MD, Squadron Six Aerospace Limited
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