Quebec City, Quebec, April 7, 2025 OVA, a Quebec-based company specialized in enterprise-level immersive technologies, has been awarded $849K by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) to advance its Artificial Intelligence (AI) Agent technology.
The Canadian Space Agency plays a crucial role in advancing space exploration and research, with a commitment to fostering innovation and excellence in its operations.
As the space industry evolves, the need for sophisticated training and knowledge dissemination methods becomes increasingly important. Current training methods, which heavily rely on the availability of a human instructor, act as a bottleneck for efficient knowledge distribution.
The goal of this partnership is to address this bottleneck through a lifelike AI-powered instructor that facilitates knowledge transfer by providing dynamic, interactive, and intelligent in-person training. This conversational agent will be able to provide theoretical knowledge and walk trainees through various training scenarios, allowing them to gain hands-on experience and a comprehensive understanding of complex operations in a controlled, safe, and adaptive environment, without relying on a human instructor. It is expected to be capable of adapting to various skill levels, providing tailored content to each trainee based on their current level of understanding and interactions.
OVA will provide a package to be integrated by the CSA inside their HoloMOTS environment for use with the HoloLens 2. It has the potential to reduce costs significantly for modern space missions and operations involving the Canadarm technology, namely the Mobile Servicing System (MSS, aka Canadarm2), that is currently on the International Space Station orbiting around the Earth, and the Gateway External Robotics System (GERS, aka Canadarm3), that will eventually be located on the new Gateway Station orbiting around the Moon.
This innovation aligns with CSA’s mission to modernize training methodologies, amplify operational effectiveness, and advance training efficiency by leveraging leading AI technology. It represents a pathway to fully accessible training content creation, particularly within the space robotics sector, and is expected to reduce the logistical burdens and costs associated with current training methods. The resulting robust technological framework will aim to ensure that CSA personnel are well-equipped to handle contemporary and future space missions, and be prepared to fully accommodate future AI advancements.
Comments from OVA
"We aim to research and develop an agentic AI solution to deliver training on high-stakes operations involved in, but not limited to a space exploration context. This will open up new possibilities to improve how human and artificial intelligences can collaborate to perform complex tasks in a wide range of domains ." - Pierre-Luc Lapointe, Head of R&D
“Very proud to be working with CSA on this. It’s a project focused around a dynamic capability - we’re not just building a training solution for one need, rather we’re building a training tool that adapts to many needs” - Tim Purdy, Project Manager
For media inquiries, please contact:
Tanya Sahni, Marketing Lead
For specific inquiries, please contact:
Harold Dumur, CEO
Pierre-Luc Lapointe, Head of R&D
Tim Purdy, Senior Project Manager, Clients and Business Development
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