Ex-NASA Engineer Unveils HAWK, CANARY, PELICAN Drone Fleet to Fight Urban Wildfires
alex_verem · x · 2026-09-11
Los Angeles startup Iwa Robotics, founded by ex-NASA JPL engineer Mirza Samnani, unveiled its three-drone Discovery and Resolution Fleet on September 5 for urban wildfire response.
HAWK flies long patrols to spot fires; CANARY collects sensor data on fire behavior and crew risk; PELICAN autonomously flies to hot spots, lays fire lines, and keeps dousing flames. The fleet was developed and tested with fire crews and captains.
Iwa sells the whole system as a service covering aircraft, autonomy training, data, maintenance, and insurance. It's demoing across eight states. Caveats: no published range, flight time, payload, smoke/wind performance, or FAA authorizations, and line-of-sight rules remain a constraint. Competitors Rain (autonomous Black Hawk) and Dryad (12-minute autonomous detection and suppression) are building similar systems.
Related event: Ex-NASA Engineer's Three-Drone Fleet Detects and Fights Wildfires(2 posts)→
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