Iwa Robotics Unveils HAWK, CANARY, and PELICAN for Transforming Firefighting

In September 2026,  Iwa Robotics, Inc. introduced its three-platform drone line for wildfire and emergency response missions, which mainly includes HAWK, a long-endurance reconnaissance aircraft, along with  CANARY, a sensing platform that diagnoses fires and optimizes crew engagement, and PELICAN, a self-guided aerial suppression aircraft equipped to address hot spots and establish fire lines with perpetual drenching.

Meet Three-Platform Drone of Iwa Robotics

Together, the three platforms execute missions under a single operating framework the company calls its Discovery and Resolution Fleet™ (DRF), accelerating firefighting capabilities in urban wildfires through a fleet of autonomous aircraft designed for wildland-urban interface (WUI) zones. The CANARY platform provides critical insights to track fire behavior and evolving threat levels, and emphasizes crew safety with critical sensory data and personnel risk signals, highlighting the excitement for the crew safety tools the CANARY platform brings to a unit, as reported by CEO of Iwa Robotics Mirza Samnani.

Developed alongside fire crews for practical effectiveness, Iwa's technology is tailored to their demands. The company offers a fleet-as-a-service model that supplies drones, training, maintenance, and insurance without requiring upfront capital or lengthy procurement processes. This approach allows agencies to add aerial detection and remote suppression capabilities without any upfront capital expenditure, training programs, or lengthy procurement cycles. Currently, Iwa is conducting a cross-country roadshow with demonstrations for fire and public safety agencies across eight states. Interested parties can request a demo at roadshow@iwarobotics.ai to receive product information through this channel.

Impact on the ICT Industry

This newly introduced platform positively impacts the industry by integrating a consolidated data framework with hardware and shifting the trajectory of edge computing, IoT architecture, and emergency ICT logistics. 
The Discovery and Resolution Fleet (DRF) framework challenges the ICT industry to innovate data processing and monetization in critical environments. Iwa Robotics advances Fleet-as-a-Service (FaaS) in public sector ICT by transforming public safety tech from capital expenditure (CapEx) to operational expenditure (OpEx) through a managed service that includes aircraft, training, data insights, maintenance, and insurance. Overall, forcing cybersecurity frameworks within the IoT and robotics space to adhere strictly to government-vetted supply chains provides a secure ICT infrastructure.

Traditional ICT infrastructure and drone technologies often face challenges during active disasters. The Iwa system helps to address several legacy limitations by leveraging these three DRF integrated platforms, including HAWK for reconnaissance, CANARY for atmospheric monitoring, and PELICAN for autonomous suppression, operating under a unified system for real-time mesh networking. This further helps to prevent reliance on cloud services and accelerates cybersecurity by adhering to NDAA compliance.

Impact on the Military Drones Industry

The global military drones market size accounted for USD 16.89 billion in 2025, and is projected to hit around USD 18.23 billion by 2026 and is anticipated to reach around USD 35.96 billion by 2035, growing at a CAGR of 7.85% from 2026 to 2035.

According to Precedence Research, this newly launched platform significantly benefits the industry by providing a blueprint for addressing the major challenges for wildfire and emergency management. 
In the military drones industry, the PELICAN platform exemplifies low-collateral autonomous operations, making it a model for defense tech that could transition to subscription services. Iwa's success in FaaS is fostering similar offerings in defense, helping to address traditional hurdles like capital costs and regulatory challenges for integrated operations across varied drone types.

Iwa also addresses industry challenges by surpassing high procurement limitations, where the FaaS model generally prevents long procurement cycles for immediate tech deployment. It also resolves data fragmentation by integrating detection and response into a single system, lowering delays. Additionally, high autonomy for basic training of fire crews to operate drones efficiently, streamlining pilot training.

About Iwa Robotics

Iwa Robotics, Inc. is a Los Angeles-based autonomous field Systems Company known for NDAA-compliant drone fleets designed for wildfire response and emergency management with end-to-end aerial detection, diagnostics, and firefighting capabilities. Iwa Robotics mainly operates under a unified framework called the Discovery and Resolution Fleet™ (DRF) with three purpose-built drone platforms, HAWK, CANARY, and PELICAN.

The company’s major goal is to lower procurement barriers for public safety agencies while optimizing crew safety in high-risk Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) zones by updating fire management with advanced first responders and a dispatchable sky fleet that mitigates disasters before it escalates.