About
Windward Drones is a Canadian DSP (Drone Service Provider) incorporated in 2022 that specializes in drone solutions within the agriculture and horticulture industry. Windward has a team of 5 employees that has been consistently growing year-over-year. The company’s core services include multispectral analysis, precision mapping, crop application, and inventory management using UAV and mobile scanning technologies.
Project
Nursery operators manage thousands of plants across open-air environments, yet most rely on manual counts and basic spreadsheets to track inventory. This leads to inefficiencies, costly errors, and missed revenue due to stock inaccuracies. With support from the Technology Access Program, Windward Drones will work with the Vineland Research Centre TDS to integrate autonomous drone operations with edge-based AI that can count, classify, and assess plants in real time.
Impact & Outcomes
This project will result in the development of a commercially viable, AI-powered drone-in-a-box inventory management system (using readily available off-the-shelf drones) tailored for Ontario’s horticulture and nursery sectors. The tangible outcomes include: Product commercialization within 16 months post-project, enabling early customer onboarding and sales. Hiring of 2–3 full-time staff in Ontario, including roles in AI development, operations, and sales. Projected revenue increase of $175,000+ over the first 24 months, scaling with expanded adoption across nurseries and agricultural operators. Customer cost savings of up to 30% on inventory tracking labour and reduced losses due to miscounted or unmonitored stock
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