Vantis Opens Mission and Network Operations Center for Statewide UAS System

Van­tis has opened its Mis­sion and Net­work Oper­a­tions Cen­tre (MNOC) at Grand­Sky Busi­ness and Avi­a­tion Park, in what it claims is the first statewide unmanned air­craft sys­tem (UAS) to coor­di­nate beyond visu­al line of sight (BVLOS) flight.

North­ern Plains UAS Test Site (NPUASTS) exec­u­tive direc­tor Trevor Woods said: “From this loca­tion, we have the tech­nol­o­gy to mon­i­tor and con­trol the remote infra­struc­ture to enable the entire oper­a­tion.

“The MNOC will be inte­gral to coor­di­nat­ing safe, repeat­able BVLOS flights across North Dako­ta, and scal­able to larg­er regions.”

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives were on hand from Van­tis, NPUASTS, which admin­is­ters Van­tis, Thales, the FAA, the UAS indus­try, and North Dako­ta state lead­ers, who have pro­vid­ed ongo­ing vision and sup­port since autho­riz­ing its cre­ation in 2019.

North Dako­ta gov­er­nor Doug Bur­gum said: “This oper­a­tions cen­tre is a prime exam­ple of how North Dako­ta con­tin­ues to invest in tech­nol­o­gy to cre­ate oppor­tu­ni­ties for cit­i­zens and busi­ness­es and diver­si­fy our econ­o­my.

“With Van­tis, we are cre­at­ing a plat­form for entre­pre­neurs and inno­va­tors to devel­op new prod­ucts and for the gov­ern­ment and the pri­vate sec­tor to offer bet­ter ser­vices to the pub­lic, and today’s grand open­ing fur­ther cements North Dako­ta as a
des­ti­na­tion for UAS oper­a­tions.”

Van­tis signed a long-term agree­ment with Grand­Sky and began con­struc­tion on the MNOC ear­ly last year and simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, Thales was select­ed as the Van­tis sys­tem inte­gra­tor and long-term part­ner to build the sys­tem.

Key site test­ing and val­i­da­tion flights have been occur­ring reg­u­lar­ly in west­ern North Dako­ta, in pri­ma­ry test sites near Willis­ton and Wat­ford City, which have all been secure­ly mon­i­tored at the MNOC.

Vice pres­i­dent of Air­space Mobil­i­ty Solu­tions for the Amer­i­c­as at Thales Todd Dono­van said: “Today marks a sig­nif­i­cant step towards the safe and effi­cient inte­gra­tion of drones into our air­space sys­tem, and with the MNOC up and run­ning, drones will deliv­er real-world eco­nom­ic and social ben­e­fits to North Dako­ta cit­i­zens, at scale.”

One year ago, Bur­gum signed into law an addi­tion­al $20 mil­lion invest­ment to con­tin­ue build­ing Van­tis to trans­form the state into the nation’s drone epi­cen­ter, while NPUASTS received $28 mil­lion two years pre­vi­ous­ly to cre­ate and devel­op a statewide BVLOS net­work.

Pre­vi­ous­ly, in Feb­ru­ary 2021, Volan­si part­nered with the NPUASTS to sup­port Van­tis after a com­pet­i­tive selec­tion process when the VOLY C10  was the only drone select­ed to inte­grate and test Van­tis’ tech­nolo­gies, such as Com­mand and Con­trol links or ground-based Detect and Avoid.