“Vantis Expands Aircraft Systems Operations to Eastern North Dakota”

The North­ern Plains UAS Test Site (NPUASTS), in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Thales USA, has announce the con­tin­ued expan­sion of Van­tis, North Dakota’s statewide sys­tem for enabling advanced uncrewed air­craft sys­tems (UAS) oper­a­tions, reports a press release. 

The release explains, “A new radar site in Grand Forks is now oper­a­tional, mark­ing an impor­tant mile­stone in expand­ing the sys­tems beyond-visu­al-line-of-sight (BVLOS) capa­bil­i­ties into east­ern North Dako­ta. This lat­est devel­op­ment extends Van­tis’ cov­er­age by an addi­tion­al 33 sq. miles, increas­ing the system’s reach to near­ly 5,000 sq. miles statewide.”

Trevor Woods, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of NPUASTS, com­ment­ed, “With the acti­va­tion of the Grand Forks radar site, we’re build­ing on the momen­tum of Van­tis and fur­ther posi­tion­ing North Dako­ta as the nation’s prov­ing ground for uncrewed avi­a­tion.”

He con­tin­ued, “Grand Forks has long been a hub for UAS inno­va­tion, and this expan­sion brings new oppor­tu­ni­ties to con­nect edu­ca­tion, research, and test­ing with real-world, scal­able UAS oper­a­tions like health­care, pub­lic ser­vices and emer­gency response.”

The New Radar Site in Grand Forks

This expan­sion opens up an array of new oppor­tu­ni­ties.

: Strength­en­ing edu­ca­tion and work­force devel­op­ment - Home to the Uni­ver­si­ty of North Dako­ta (UND), which estab­lished the nation’s first accred­it­ed UAS degree pro­gram, Grand Forks (GF) is already a nation­al leader in UAS edu­ca­tion. With Van­tis infra­struc­ture now active in the area, stu­dents gain access to oper­a­tional sys­tems, increas­ing hands-on train­ing, expo­sure to BVLOS tech­nolo­gies, and col­lab­o­ra­tion on cut­ting-edge research

: Sup­port­ing pub­lic safe­ty ini­tia­tives - With GF Fire Depart­ment already demon­strat­ing how drones can enhance pub­lic ser­vice and emer­gency response capa­bil­i­ties, Van­tis pro­vides a safe, FAA-approved frame­work to fur­ther advance UAS use in pub­lic ser­vice. The added infra­struc­ture will enable faster response times and expand­ed mis­sion sets, help­ing first respon­ders bet­ter serve their com­mu­ni­ties.

: Enabling med­ical deliv­ery through part­ners like iSight - Pre­vi­ous demon­stra­tions have high­light­ed how iSight Drone Ser­vices uses UAS to sup­port Altru Health Sys­tem through pro­posed med­ical pack­age deliv­ery. With cov­er­age extend­ing to GF, this capa­bil­i­ty is poised to scale, pro­vid­ing more effi­cient and rapid deliv­ery of crit­i­cal med­ical sup­plies.

: Fuelling UAS research and com­mer­cial­iza­tion — The UAS ecosys­tem in GF, com­posed of Grand­SKY, the nation’s first UAS-focused busi­ness and avi­a­tion park; the HIVE, a hybrid incu­ba­tor and accel­er­a­tor for emerg­ing UAS and auton­o­my star­tups; and the UND Research Insti­tute for Autonomous Sys­tems (RIAS), offers a real-world test­bed for devel­op­ers, researchers, and entre­pre­neurs to eval­u­ate and deploy tech­nolo­gies that will shape the future of avi­a­tion. This expan­sion sup­ports ongo­ing ini­tia­tives in auton­o­my, detect-and-avoid sys­tems, and data inte­gra­tion for real-time UAS oper­a­tions.

Van­tis inte­grates avi­a­tion-grade infra­struc­ture, reg­u­la­to­ry sup­port and real-time ser­vices to sup­port scal­able BVLOS oper­a­tions across indus­tries such as agri­cul­ture, ener­gy, pub­lic safe­ty and trans­porta­tion. It is also the first to receive approval through the FAA’s Near-Term Approval Process (NTAP), recog­nis­ing its capa­ble risk mit­i­ga­tion frame­work.

For more infor­ma­tion

VantisUAS.com

NPUASTS.com

(Images: North­ern Plains UAS Test Site)

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