April 29, 2026 — Independent Robotics Inc., a leader in advanced interfaces for autonomous systems, has been awarded a $2.28 million contract by the Government of Canada. The contract will support the operational testing of IMPAC, Independent Robotics’ natural-language command and control software for autonomous robots (uncrewed systems).
IMPAC enables human operators to interact with complex robotic systems through natural, conversational language rather than complicated instructions or computer code, keeping multi-robot operations synchronized and mission aligned. By turning natural language commands into executable plans across multi-agent and multi-domain environments, IMPAC reduces training time and operational friction for military personnel, allowing the system to act as a force multiplier for existing teams.
Under the Innovative Solutions Canada (ISC) program Testing Stream 11 (TS11), Independent Robotics will collaborate with Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC) to field-test IMPAC equipped autonomous marine vehicles at the DRDC Atlantic Research Centre in Halifax. The joint evaluation will focus on deploying IMPAC’s human-machine interface in low-connectivity outdoor environments to validate the systems’ field capabilities.
“This award reflects growing recognition that fast, robust human-machine interfaces will play a critical role as defence operations modernize,” said Julian Ware, CEO of Independent Robotics. “Current autonomous systems often require operators to translate tactical goals into complex instructions, creating a cognitive bottleneck. With IMPAC, an operator can simply direct a group of robots the way they would direct a group of people.
“Building natural language processing that is both context-aware and capable of functioning in remote, low-connectivity environments is a significant challenge,” added Dr. Gregory Dudek, CTO of Independent Robotics. “This partnership allows us to stress test our systems in operational environments.”
