FPDynamics Advances to Round 3 After Winning Drone Surge Round 2

The company's FP-X tactical UAS design has been selected in the Design Submission round of the Department of National Defence's Drone Surge contest, earning the company a $339,480 grant and an invitation to build the prototype.

TORONTO, ON, May 8, 2026. Five months after taking Round 1, FPDynamics today announced that its detailed design has been selected as a winner in Round 2 of Drone Surge: Scaling Tactical UAS Manufacturing for Modern Defence, the contest run by the Department of National Defence (DND) and the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) through the Innovation for Defence Excellence and Security (IDEaS) program.

Round 2, the Design Submission phase, asked innovators to move beyond concept and deliver detailed plans for a scalable, low-cost, attritable first-person-view UAS: airframe, avionics, and, critically, the manufacturing approach to produce it at volume on Canadian soil. With the win, FPDynamics receives a $339,480 grant to carry its winning design, FP-X: Canada’s Low-Cost, Modular, and Resilient AI-Enabled UAS, into the prototype phase. The company advances to Round 3, where a working prototype must be demonstrated for funding of up to $650,000.

Round 1 was about the idea; Round 2 was about proving we could engineer it: every part number, every supplier, every station on the line. Now comes the part we love most: building the thing and flying it.

FPDynamics Team

From Drawings to Flight Line

With two competitive rounds now secured, one remains between FPDynamics and a production-ready Canadian tactical UAS:

FP-X is a new aircraft, deliberately much simpler than the FP1 research platform it descends from: a low-cost airframe designed from the first sketch to be produced at high volume in Canada. Simplicity does not mean a ceiling. FP-X is modular by design, easily expanded with more advanced sensors, autonomy, and payloads as missions demand, while inheriting the proven flight stack and edge-AI heritage of the FP1. The Round 2 package detailed the domestic supply chain and production line architecture built to surge, turning one validated design into many fielded units without leaving Canada.

Round 3 preparations are already underway. Prototype development, flight testing, and manufacturing validation will run through the coming months, with the company's Toronto team expanding across avionics, structures, and production engineering.

About FPDynamics

FPDynamics is a Canadian aerospace technology company based in Toronto, building autonomous drone systems with AI-driven analytics for defence, construction, agriculture, and mining. From the FP1 autonomous platform to custom mission-specific systems, everything is engineered in-house, airframe to inference.

Drone Surge is an element of the Innovation for Defence Excellence and Security (IDEaS) program of the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces. Details of the contest are available on the Government of Canada website.