By: Dawn Zoldi
After a tornado ripped through a North Dakota town, during an executive budget pitch, the governor’s question was, “Where are the drones?” That moment, as Trevor Woods recounted it, crystallized the state’s commitment to building Vantis, a state-wide infrastructure for drone operations. In the latest episode of the Dawn of Autonomy podcast, Woods, Executive Director of the Northern Plains UAS Test Site (NPUASTS) and one of Vantis’ original architects, walked through the origin, architecture, regulatory milestones and expanding mission of the infrastructure that has set North Dakota on a path that few states have matched.
The Birth of Statewide Infrastructure
Woods’ career predates even Part 107. A Part 61 pilot holding CFI and CFII certificates, he joined the NPUASTS before it officially existed. He helped draft the proposal that made it one of the original seven FAA-designated test sites. That congressionally authorized distinction that gave the team early access to special authorizations and regulatory relationships unavailable to ad hoc operators.
The roots of what would become Vantis trace back to University of North Dakota (UND) UAS research dating to 2005, early Department of Defense (DoD) surveillance radar work and a pivotal conversation with General Atomics whose CEO asked plainly, “Where’s beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS)?” The test site’s first executive director responded, “We’ll get right on it.”
Woods and his predecessor, Nick Flom, locked themselves in an office and started building the concept to first leverage the digital airport surveillance radar at Grand Forks Air Force Base through the GrandSKY complex. They watched energy and rail companies like BNSF and Xcel Energy spend enormous resources standing up their own BVLOS infrastructure from scratch.
“We could see the investment in time and resources that it was taking for them to build up the requisite infrastructure to enable BVLOS,” Woods explained. “The light bulb really started to go off. We had the opportunity as a government entity of the state of North Dakota to actually make an impact here.”
With Governor Doug Burgum’s backing, legislative funding and the test site’s deep regulatory expertise, an initial state investment in 2019 helped to propel Vantis. It became fully operational by 2020, and became the country’s first statewide drone infrastructure network.
Pipes and Expertise, Not Brick and Mortar
The simplest analogy Woods offers for Vantis is infrastructure for roads. He said, “I’m not here to build the gas stations. We let industry build that out and service the users on the roads.”
But in technical terms, Vantis consists of a layered system of aviation-grade surveillance radars that meet FAA Part 87 radio frequency (RF) standards, backhaul ground infrastructure connected through North Dakota’s existing state government fiber optic ring and a Mission and Network Operations Center (MNOC) at the GrandSKY campus in Grand Forks, where servers aggregate and fuse all incoming data.
Thales USA serves as the systems integration partner. The company continues to deploy communications and surveillance infrastructure in phases across the state. It also brings software partners onboard to handle data processing, operator displays and an emerging traffic management layer.
The coverage Vantis delivers today spans approximately 5,000 square miles of radar-supported capability plus statewide ADS-B visibility. The physical architecture behind that coverage is less brick-and-mortar than it might appear. Radars sit on towers, both government-owned and commercial, and feed data through a North Dakota state government fiber optic ring already in the ground. That data flows into dedicated servers at the Mission and Network Operations Center (MNOC) at GrandSKY, where software partners handle processing, display and an emerging traffic management layer. “I’ve used the analogy of pipes with water flowing through it,” Woods said. “We’re letting the water flow, but we’re building the pipes. Industry brings technical solutions.” The state builds and maintains the shared plumbing; private partners build the services that run through it.
Rather than functioning as an air traffic control system (ATC), a distinction the FAA was explicit about, Vantis acts as a UAS service supplier (USS) that gives pilots the situational awareness they need to exercise their own see-and-avoid responsibility. “The FAA was very clear that they’re not approving an air traffic control system,” Woods explained. “They were approving a system that provides surveillance so that you, as the pilot, can take on the responsibility and liability to navigate your airplane in a safe manner.”
An operator connecting to Vantis receives a display alongside their ground control station (GCS) showing other traffic, their own aircraft position, and performance-based range rings tied to TCAS and ASTM standards — what Woods called “UTM Lite” until the broader Part 108 and Part 146 framework matures.
That same philosophy of mobility extends to the test site itself. NPUASTS deliberately avoided anchoring its model to a fixed parcel of land. Instead, it built operational processes around flexibility. “We knew that our clients would need our services wherever their use case demanded it,” Woods noted. As a result, the test site has supported operations in 19 states outside North Dakota. Woods’ team brings regulatory process expertise and partner relationships to wherever a client’s mission requires. Vantis system coverage follows, rather than dictates, that footprint.
Woods highlighted iSight, one of the earliest UAS operating companies in the country, as proof of Vantis’ efficacy. iSight uses it to conduct BVLOS infrastructure inspections across western North Dakota’s oil and gas country. The company flies under a Part 107 waiver that covers operations across all four Vantis service areas.
The FAA Radar Data Breakthrough
Earlier this year, Vantis became the first non-federal entity in the nation to access raw, unfiltered, non-delayed FAA radar feeds for unmanned aircraft operations. The landmark achievement was years in the making. Woods and his team have approached the FAA about pulling in existing taxpayer-funded radar data that already supports ATC nationwide. The agency had historically resisted letting that data flow outside federal agencies due to concerns that real-time airspace picture data in the wrong hands could have real security implications.
What changed the calculus was the relationship and track record the test site had built with the FAA across more than a decade of co-development. Vantis had documented architecture, defined performance requirements drawn from FAA guidance, TCAS standards, ASTM, and NASA research.
“The FAA has been by our side for the entire development of the system,” Woods noted. That institutional trust, built through waiver processes and years of joint operations, gave the FAA confidence that Vantis had the security posture and governance framework to handle sensitive federal data responsibly. The arrangement now requires that the MNOC operate as a secure enclave.
“We can now fuse that (FAA raw radar) information with local surveillance radars and eventually deliver a service or product to an end-state user,” Woods said. In practical terms, combining local radar with the FAA’s existing nationwide infrastructure dramatically scales Vantis’ coverage footprint. It extends its reach toward the full state of North Dakota and, in time, potentially beyond state lines.
The Regulatory Architecture Under the Hood
Two additional regulatory achievements further distinguish Vantis and the test site from other entities in the UAS ecosystem. First, Vantis holds a Non-Traditional Airworthiness Process (NTAP) agreement with the FAA. This means the infrastructure itself has been accepted for safety-of-flight purposes. In practical terms, it allows companies like iSight to fly BVLOS with the Vantis system, as long as they can demonstrate they meet the system’s established requirements. That NTAP acceptance feeds directly into the framework the FAA is developing for Part 146, the Automated Data Service Provider structure referenced in the forthcoming Part 108 NPRM that the industry is watching closely.
Second, Congress has authorized all FAA-designated test sites to invoke Section 44803 privileges, the ability to accept airworthiness determinations and crew qualifications internally rather than routing everything through the FAA.
This powerful NTAP – 44803 combination allows the test site to bring in early technology readiness level (TRL) equipment, evaluate it under its own accepted processes and then fly it BVLOS. This would be extraordinarily difficult to replicate outside North Dakota’s ecosystem.
The Counter-UAS Expanding Airspace Picture
While counter-UAS (c-UAS) is not the test site’s original mission, it seems to be rapidly becoming part of the overall value proposition. For the past three to four years, NPUASTS and UND have worked with the Department of Homeland Security, Office of Science and Technology (DHS S&T) on mitigation testing at restricted ranges. Together, they have evaluated everything from kinetic takedown systems to RF jamming, nets and lasers. Vantis can provide situational awareness regarding who is cooperative and compliant in a given airspace volume so federal partners make threat assessments and act.
The passage of the SAFER Skies Act in the National Defense Authorization Act opens the door for local law enforcement to potentially access Vantis capabilities for public safety BVLOS operations, which could add yet another stakeholder community to the system’s growing user base. (See prior AG coverage of the SAFER Skies Act).
Want to Replicate North Dakota’s Winning Formula?
A powerful ecosystem built Vantis, deliberately and methodically. It included UND research, state legislative funding, Governor Armstrong’s continued championship, Congressional delegation support from Senators Hoeven and Cramer, USAF collaboration at Grand Forks Air Force Base and private sector partners including General Atomics, Thales and GrandSKY.
“Political forces are a necessity in this space, not just for emphasizing political influence. They’re the ones that can stand up and really champion for success and for change,” Woods said. North Dakota remains willing to have government-to-government conversations with any state looking to replicate this model. The Northern Plains UAS Test Site maintains a full suite of services information, contact options and Vantis coverage details at npuasts.com. Vantis-specific resources are available at vantisuas.com.