MONTREAL — Demand for commercial drones is growing dramatically — from an estimated $19.9 billion in 2022 to a projected $57 billion in 2030. And the Autonomous Vehicle (AV) market is projected to grow to more than $13 trillion by 2030. But one of the key challenges for drone and AV manufacturers continues to be finding more-accurate and lower-cost navigational sensors that are essential to enabling this growth. …Now a Quebec-based company has developed an inertial optical system that matches the accuracy of navigational sensors used in the aerospace industry at a fraction of the cost. …The company behind this new technology, Montreal-based One Silicon Chip Photonics (OSCP), has partnered with French multinational company Thales, which is developing autonomous rail systems and has been testing OSCP’s prototype in the field. …drones and AVs are also increasingly being used in agriculture, mining, mapping and survey work, as well as in trucking, delivery and other transport industries.