Kelluu brings airship technology to Canada

Kelluu's airship flies in the Arctic (Kelluu)

Finnish company Kelluu, which builds autonomous airships, has announced it is expanding into Canada. The firm is setting up at Area X.O, a defence innovation hub in Ottawa, according to a Kelluu statement on 28 July. The hub brings together industry, government, the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), and research institutions to “accelerate the development and adoption of next-generation capabilities”, the statement noted.

Kelluu “aims to advance Canadian Arctic autonomy with technology built and tested for cold conditions”, the statement added.

“Canada and Area X.O in Ottawa offer an ideal platform for growing a company like Kelluu. There's a ready-made ecosystem to step into here, and the right people to start building with quickly,” Janne Hietala, CEO for Kelluu, said in the statement.

Kelluu's technology has been tested in NATO exercises, demonstrating interoperability with NATO systems, the ability to provide accurate situational awareness in global navigation satellite system (GNSS)-jammed areas, Arctic operations, and different missions, such as mobile 5G base station, the statement said.

Building up

Kelluu was started in 2018 with the idea of producing a “small, mass manufacturable airship that could stay in the air all the time”, Hietala told Janes on 4 August.

“In 2022, we achieved 12 hours of continuous flight time using the LTA (lighter than air), using hydrogen as a lifting gas and also as a fuel cell energy source”, he said.

“That enabled us then to go after and expand into persistent monitoring applications on the civilian side,” Hietala said.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 increased interest in defence applications, he said, noting that Kelluu is headquartered in eastern Finland, near the Russian border.