Vantis: North Dakota’s Revolutionary UAS Infrastructure Program Reaching New Heights

The North­ern Plains UAS Test Site is trans­form­ing unmanned avi­a­tion through inno­v­a­tive infra­struc­ture, reg­u­la­to­ry advance­ment, and col­lab­o­ra­tive part­ner­ships

The evo­lu­tion of unmanned air­craft sys­tems (UAS) inte­gra­tion into nation­al air­space has found a pio­neer­ing home in North Dako­ta through Van­tis, a ground­break­ing statewide UAS net­work.

As revealed in a recent eVTOL Insights pod­cast fea­tur­ing Erin Roesler, Deputy Exec­u­tive Direc­tor at the North­ern Plains UAS Test Site, the pro­gram con­tin­ues to make sig­nif­i­cant strides in advanc­ing UAS oper­a­tions and infra­struc­ture.

At its core, Van­tis was cre­at­ed to address a crit­i­cal gap in UAS oper­a­tions — the lack of shared infra­struc­ture. Unlike tra­di­tion­al trans­porta­tion sec­tors that ben­e­fit from shared resources like high­ways and air­ports, UAS oper­a­tors his­tor­i­cal­ly had to devel­op their own infra­struc­ture for beyond visu­al line of sight (BVLOS) oper­a­tions.

Van­tis now pro­vides com­pre­hen­sive cov­er­age across approx­i­mate­ly 3,000 square miles in North Dako­ta, offer­ing essen­tial ser­vices includ­ing com­mand and con­trol capa­bil­i­ties and sur­veil­lance sys­tems.

The pro­gram has achieved sig­nif­i­cant reg­u­la­to­ry break­throughs, par­tic­u­lar­ly through the FAA’s Near Term Approval Process (NTAP). As the first enti­ty to com­plete NTAP’s four phas­es with mul­ti­ple oper­a­tors, Van­tis has demon­strat­ed remark­able effi­cien­cy in secur­ing BVLOS approvals — reduc­ing the time­line from two years to less than three months for sub­se­quent oper­a­tors.

A sig­nif­i­cant devel­op­ment in Van­tis’s port­fo­lio is Project ULTRA, a col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Depart­ment of Defense aimed at enhanc­ing mil­i­tary logis­ti­cal capa­bil­i­ties through UAS oper­a­tions.

The upcom­ing tests between Grand Forks Air Force Base and Cav­a­lier Space Force Sta­tion will val­i­date oper­a­tional con­cepts for secure and effi­cient car­go trans­port between con­trolled and uncon­trolled air­space envi­ron­ments, poten­tial­ly cre­at­ing a blue­print for future mil­i­tary UAS inte­gra­tion across the Unit­ed States.

Counter-UAS Capa­bil­i­ties The test site has expand­ed its scope to include counter-UAS test­ing in part­ner­ship with the Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty. This ini­tia­tive eval­u­ates var­i­ous counter-UAS tech­nolo­gies, pro­vid­ing cru­cial data for pro­tect­ing nation­al secu­ri­ty assets and devel­op­ing defense strate­gies against unau­tho­rized UAS activ­i­ties.

The pro­gram has secured a ground­break­ing agree­ment with the FAA for access to unfil­tered radar sur­veil­lance feeds, poten­tial­ly expand­ing cov­er­age from 3,000 to 56,000 square miles. Addi­tion­al­ly, Van­tis is focus­ing on sup­port­ing pub­lic safe­ty and state agency ini­tia­tives in UAS inte­gra­tion, aim­ing to enhance rur­al con­nec­tiv­i­ty and emer­gency ser­vices through BVLOS oper­a­tions.

A unique aspect of the pro­gram’s mis­sion involves prepar­ing the next gen­er­a­tion of UAS pro­fes­sion­als. Giv­en the rapid­ly evolv­ing nature of UAS reg­u­la­tions and tech­nol­o­gy, empha­sis is placed on devel­op­ing adap­tive learn­ing skills and main­tain­ing cur­rent knowl­edge of indus­try devel­op­ments, rather than sim­ply teach­ing sta­t­ic reg­u­la­tions.

As Van­tis con­tin­ues to evolve from a mere test site to a cat­a­lyst for future UAS and autonomous avi­a­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties, its com­pre­hen­sive approach to infra­struc­ture devel­op­ment, reg­u­la­to­ry advance­ment, and indus­try col­lab­o­ra­tion posi­tions North Dako­ta at the fore­front of UAS inte­gra­tion.

Through ini­tia­tives like Project ULTRA, counter-UAS test­ing, and expand­ed sur­veil­lance capa­bil­i­ties, Van­tis is active­ly shap­ing the future of unmanned avi­a­tion while cre­at­ing a mod­el for oth­er states to fol­low.