GRAND FORKS, ND |Today it was announced that the University of North Dakota will serve as a counter-drone technology clearinghouse for Joint Interagency Task Force-401 under a memorandum of understanding signed during the 2026 UAS Summit and Expo. The agreement creates a pathway for UND and North Dakota’s UAS partners to test, assess and help advance technologies that protect military personnel and installations from hostile drones.
Sen. John Hoeven announced the partnership before UND President Andrew Armacost signed the agreement onstage. Hoeven said Army Gen. Matt Ross, who leads the task force, had already signed the document. He described UND as the first and only university in the nation to take on this clearinghouse role for the task force.
The announcement puts a new mission behind North Dakota’s long-running investment in unmanned aviation: helping military decision-makers identify counter-UAS systems worth pursuing and giving developers a place to demonstrate their capabilities.
Counter-UAS Testing to Support Military Technology Decisions
Hoeven said the partnership will draw on UND’s research expertise and the wider regional network, including the Northern Plains UAS Test Site, GrandSKY, Grand Forks Air Force Base and Camp Grafton. Together, those organizations offer capabilities for evaluating counter-drone technologies to inform the task force’s recommendations to the military services.
The university’s role centers on testing, assessment and technical recommendations, rather than procurement decisions. Hoeven framed that work as a way to reduce risk, manage costs and accelerate the military’s pursuit of effective systems.
For companies, the agreement offers a potential route to demonstrate technology before an organization working across the services. “If you got something worth selling, if you got something that our military could use,” Hoeven told attendees, “here’s where you can come and prove your mettle.”
Hoeven said conversations with Ross built on earlier cooperation around the Technology Readiness Experimentation, or T-REX, effort. He pointed to demonstrations involving directed energy and cyber capabilities as examples of the range of approaches the military needs to address drone threats.
JIATF 401 Emphasizes Speed, Safety and Technical Depth
An Air Force colonel representing JIATF-401 said the task force’s objective goes beyond finding promising demonstrations. Its team needs a deep understanding of the underlying science and technology to determine where investment can advance a capability and when a laboratory system can move into operational use.
“General Ross has given us one measure of effectiveness, and that is to rapidly deliver state-of-the-art counter UAS tech to the war fighter and law enforcement,” the colonel said. He described a deliberate balance between urgency and caution.
“We’re going to go fast where we can and slow where we must,” he said, identifying safety and risk assessment as areas that demand care.
The colonel also pointed to Grand Forks’ participation in the task force’s directed-energy pilot program and the capabilities of the Point Defense Battle Lab. Learning more about the community’s military, research and industry relationships, he said, strengthened the case for a deeper partnership.
UND Counter-Drone Research Supports Rapid Prototyping
Armacost said UND and the task force developed the agreement in a matter of months. He credited Hoeven with facilitating the relationship and emphasized the university’s ability to support testing, evaluation and repeated design improvements.
UND’s counter-drone work spans high-power microwaves, lasers, conventional munitions and jamming systems that target drone guidance and control, Armacost said. The new partnership will connect that technical work with the task force’s operational needs.
“We’re eager to build this relationship because we know we can facilitate the test and evaluation and also the rapid prototyping and re-prototyping and redesign of systems,” he said.
Armacost also highlighted the Northern Plains UAS Test Site’s role in providing an environment where industry and government partners can develop and test technology. He credited state lawmakers and local leaders alongside federal partners for supporting the region’s capabilities.
UAS Summit Honors Hoeven and Grand Sky’s Tom Swoyer
The agreement followed another milestone at the summit’s 20th anniversary gathering. BBI International announced that its UAS Sky Pioneer Award will now carry the name Senator John Hoeven UAS Sky Pioneer Award, in recognition of his role in developing North Dakota’s unmanned aviation sector.
Hoeven then presented the 2026 award to Tom Swoyer Jr. for his work developing GrandSKY, attracting anchor tenants and helping create new opportunities for military and industry collaboration. Hoeven credited Swoyer and staff member Josh Carter with developing the Project ULTRA contracting concept.
Swoyer emphasized persistence and partnerships in accepting the award, citing relationships with the university, test site, county and city.
Those same relationships underpin UND’s new task force agreement. The next challenge will move beyond building the partnership to producing assessments that help military users distinguish promising counter-drone technology from capabilities ready for the field.