October 23–25, 2026
Brookstreet Hotel · Ottawa, Canada
Three days of talks, live demonstrations and collaboration around open-source autonomous vehicles.
ArduPilot is an open-source autopilot project for drones and other autonomous vehicles. Its developer team, partner organizations, researchers and users are gathering in Ottawa. UTILI is pleased to help host the conference, with Saturday afternoon flight demonstrations at Area X.O.
Hosted by
Driving to the venue at 525 Legget Drive in Kanata?
Surface parking is free, adjacent lots are available on weekends, and parking passes for the underground parking garage are available at our registration table. With all the construction, please watch carefully so you don’t miss the turn into the venue.
Make the most of your time in Ottawa
Looking for food near Brookstreet, airport and local transit, or places to explore? Check out our interactive visitor guide.
ArduPilot 2026 Developer Conference Food, Landmarks, Transit, and Museums/Galleries →
Before the Conference
Arriving Early? October 19–22
Informal developer days at Brookstreet Hotel: work sessions, demo preparation and hangouts.
BlueTides After Dark
Thursday, October 22 · 17:00–20:00
Big Rig Brewery · 101A Schneider Rd #3, Kanata
Pizza and beer on Blue Robotics! Optional developer bingo, with a Blue Robotics gift card prize.
Register for BlueTides After Dark
Friday, October 23
ArduPilot Updates and BVLOS Flights
Brookstreet Hotel
Baked Goods, Fruit and Refreshments
Introduction and Opening Remarks
Nathaniel Mailhot / Jeremy Laliberté · Faculty of Engineering and Design, Carleton University
Uninhabited Aircraft Systems Training, Innovation and Leadership Initiative
ArduPilot Systems Update
Andrew Tridgell · ArduPilot
BVLOS Operations Development in Canada
Steven Bellingham · NAV CANADA / Craig Bloch-Hansen · Transport Canada
Morning Break
Traffic Systems Standards
Lindsay Mohr · AIRmarket
ArduPilot in SAIT’s Curriculum
Allister Schreiber · Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT)
Lunch
PANEL · Path to Compliant BVLOS Operations, for Canada and Beyond
Dan Moss · Manna
Tim Tuxworth · ArduPilot / SmartFleet.systems
Lindsay Mohr · AIRmarket
Carlos Ruella · Transport Canada
Lightning Talks
14:00 Omar Husain · AVSS
MAVLink-ATAK Interoperability
14:10 Marc-Antoine Leclerc / Université de Sherbrooke
Disturbance-Rejection Control and Side-Thruster Integration
14:20 David (“Buzz”) Bussenschutt / ArduPilot · MissionPlannerRust, Zephyr HAL, and RP2350
14:30 Hideyuki Fujikawa · Drone Japan · Arivia: Water-Surface Drone Shows with ArduPilot
Enabling Long-Range BVLOS Operations at Scale
Alexandre Borowczyk · Shearwater Aerospace
Afternoon Break
ArduSub: Folklore, Features and Future
Eliot Sandberg / Willian Galvani · Blue Robotics
Canadian Space Agency Balloon Program
Vlad Artyshchuk · Canadian Space Agency
Thrust WSH – Jet Powered Water Speed Record Attempt
Peter Hall · ArduPilot / KHUnmanned
Saturday, October 24
Copters, Swarms, and Live Flight Demos
Brookstreet Hotel · Afternoon at Area X.O
Baked Goods, Fruit and Refreshments
Aerial Photography Copter Update
Randy Mackay · ArduPilot
Copter Scripted Acrobatics
Andy Piper · FOSS UAV
High-Speed Landing Design
Isaac Tunney & John Bass · Université de Sherbrooke
Morning Break
ArduSwarm
Kwaku Richter
Google Summer of Code (GSoC) 2026 contributor.
Collective Return Home in Skybrush
Tamás Nepusz · CollMot Robotics Ltd.
Lightning Talks
11:30 Patrick Hinchey / Fliight Technologies · Meala Flight-Log Database
BVLOS in Canada: Regulations and Technology
Tim Tuxworth · ArduPilot / SmartFleet.systems
Lunch
Bus Loading
15 minutes reserved before departure
24b · Live Flight Demonstrations at Area X.O
Bus transfer provided · Depart Brookstreet 13:00 · Return approximately 18:00
⚠ Sign the Area X.O waiver before arrival, as its required for flight demo area access.The final flight sequence and aircraft lineup are subject to change.
Andy Piper · FOSS UAV
Aircraft: Armattan Marmotte5 variants + iFlight Nazgul5
- Scripted acrobatics with two quads.
- GPS / optical-flow switching with a guarded quad.
- Proposed “throw to VALT in FPV”, after the other flights.
Randy Mackay · ArduPilot
Aircraft: Aerial-photography copter + EDU650
- Aerial photography and Sanket’s map-based non-GPS navigation.
Amilcar do Carmo Lucas · IAV GmbH / ArduPilot
Aircraft: Various software-in-the-loop (SITL) and hardware (HITL) platforms
- An ArduPilot configurator for both beginners and professional users. It guides users through all configuration steps required for a safe vehicle operation.
- It includes heuristic based Log analysis to find the most common source of ArduPilot configuration issues with an advisor on how to solve them, by Omkar Sarkar, a Google Summer of Code (GSoC) 2026 contributor.
- ArduPilot Methodic Configurator Quickstart
Blackbird UAV · Carleton University (TBC)
An update on the activities of Carleton’s own excellent drone team.
Tim Tuxworth · SmartFleet.systems
Aircraft: HEEWING T2 Cruza / MakeFlyEasy Mini Striver / Hexsoon EDU650
- BVLOS / DAA, crossing traffic and geofence avoidance.
Cameron Fedde, with Charlie Neal · Aero Systems West
Aircraft: Quadcopter
- Multiuser web control using MAVLink over LTE.
Patrick Hinchey · Fliight Technologies
Aircraft: Phoenix + GriffinPro
- Proposed Phoenix endurance and Nighthawk thermal-gimbal demonstration.
Siddharth Purohit · CubePilot
Aircraft: CubePilot-powered multirotor
- Dual flight-controller operation using the MCU’s second core.
Sunday, October 25
Software, Hardware & Control
Brookstreet Hotel
Baked Goods, Fruit and Refreshments
Open-Source Simulation, Sim-to-Real and Companion Computing
Jacopo Panerati · National Research Council Canada
Revived Simulator
George Zogopoulos · Controlled Ascent
GNC and Adaptive Control
Ryan Beall · Tilt Autonomy
Morning Break
AP_Periph / DroneCAN Tooling
James O’Shannessy · SYPAQ Systems · Includes live peripheral demo
Autonomous VTOL Ship Landing
Phuc Nguyen / Youngjong Park · Marine Drone Tech (MDT)
Lunch
Development of a Companion Software: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Patrick Pereira (patrickelectric) + João Antônio Cardoso · Blue Robotics
Lightning Talks
13:40 Gábor Vásárhelyi / CollMot Robotics Ltd. · Skybrush Log Analyzer for ArduPilot
13:50 Sharyat · ArduPilot and Standard 922.07
Using the Other Core: Putting the Cortex-M4 Core to Work
Siddharth Purohit (Sid) · CubePilot
Afternoon Break
Cockpit: Sense and Control (Almost) Anything
Rafael Araujo Lehmkuhl · Blue Robotics
Rpanion Companion-Computer Software
Stephen Dade · ArduPilot
Closing | Thanks for attending and for your contributions to the project!
Thank You to Our Conference Sponsors
Save the program: PDF · Crisp image (WebP, 0.8 MB) · PNG image
Schedule subject to change. All times are local to Ottawa.