Northern Plains becomes the first non-federal entity in the nation to run a radar feed

GRAND FORKS, N.D. (KVRR) — After years of work with the FAA, North Dakota can now navigate air travel and fly statewide through a radar data feed. The feed comes together as part of the Northern Plains UAS Test Site’s system, Vantis.

“This is a milestone that now lets us move forward in leveraging the system to create value in the state of North Dakota, open up other operations in the state of North Dakota, and partnerships with other states that could leverage what we’re doing here in North Dakota,” said Trevor Woods, Executive Director of Northern Plains UAS Test Site.

Before activating Vantis, Woods said the FAA feed is filtered, delayed, and unsuitable for navigation. And with drones added to the mix of airspace systems, he said, this was a need.

“If they didn’t have something like this, they would not know how to visually see other airplanes in the sky and be able to stay separated. And so it lets the drone operators stay away. But it also gives assurance to other airplanes in the mass that they don’t have to be nervous that a drone is going to fly and interfere with their flight path,” said Woods.

The system will provide opportunities to create more research and development, expand flight across the state, and protect domestic military bases against threats. While these will be implemented, Woods said there will be new opportunities for the future.

“The next step is going to be larger airplanes, certification of those airplanes. And what a lot of people are excited about is what is going to look like in the future Jetsons, right? Can we get on these airplanes, and they’ll fly us to a different point? I don’t know if that’ll come, I don’t know when that’ll come, but that’s the type of conversation that’s happening right now,” said Woods.

Northern Plains will be testing the system over the next year to determine how to use the radar. And they hope in the near future to expand their feed with others.