Nacreous

Nacreous is a Calgary-based aerospace company developing next-generation vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) unmanned aerial vehicles for Arctic, maritime, and remote operations. Its mission is to advance Canadian-designed and manufactured technology for persistent aerial surveillance, inspection, and other demanding missions. Nacreous replaces conventional drone layouts with a blended-wing-body biplane quadrotor tail-sitter, combining the wind resistance of a quadcopter with the endurance of a fixed-wing aircraft. The design supports runway-free, shipboard deployment in harsh environments and can take off vertically from an unprepared surface.

Its Mistral platform is designed for long-range corridor surveys, including pipelines, high-voltage transmission lines, and telecommunications rights-of-way. The Group 2 aircraft weighs under 25 kilograms and offers up to two hours of electric endurance or more than six hours with a hybrid configuration. It has a stated one-way range of 70 kilometres for beyond-visual-line-of-sight operations and supports electro-optical/infrared, LiDAR, and photogrammetry payloads. Nacreous’s founding team brings experience in autonomous aircraft, avionics, electrical integration, and UAV engineering competitions.