Vigilant Aerospace recently participated in UAS Integration Pilot Program unmanned aircraft flights over people at the Sept. 29, 2018 football tailgate at the FargoDome in Fargo, North Dakota. The flights were led by the North Dakota Department of Transportation and...
Vigilant Aerospace Systems is excited to have the opportunity to present at the upcoming Drone Biz luncheon hosted by the Grand Forks Region Economic Development Corporation (EDC). Drone Biz provides a monthly luncheon featuring presentations from local companies and...
Vigilant Aerospace Systems, Inc. has successfully participated in a ground-breaking unmanned aircraft flight that helps to pave the way for routine flights over people, a major milestone in the development of commercial drone regulations and the use of unmanned...
As a member of the North Dakota Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Integration Pilot Program (IPP) team, Vigilant Aerospace Systems will provide airspace monitoring and situational awareness for the upcoming “flights-over-people” operations to occur on Saturday, Sept....
Vigilant Aerospace Systems’ FlightHorizonX detect-and-avoid and airspace management system is actively being used in new round of supersonic flight tests conducted by NASA with the agency’s F/A-18 research aircraft. Bob Hunte, an engineer at Applied...
Vigilant Aerospace presented a seminar on overcoming obstacles to launching a droneport at the inaugural meeting of the new Droneport Network on Sept. 12, 2018. The meeting was a part of the UAS Tech Forum 2018, the flagship event of the US Small Business...
Vigilant Aerospace Systems’ Integration Pilot Program (IPP) partners from the University of Alaska Fairbanks are launching their IPP operations with announcements on regulatory progress and presentations from IPP partners at the annual Alaska UAS Interest...
Vigilant Aerospace has partnered with the Alaska Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Integration Pilot Program (IPP) team, led by the University of Alaska Fairbanks, to provide real-time situational awareness, airspace safety and detect-and-avoid services to the team using...
Vigilant Aerospace’s CEO, Kraettli L. Epperson, served on two panels during InterDrone 2018. Our discussion on the panel, “The Future of Chips and Sensors Powering Next-Gen Drones,” on September 5, 2018, included a wide-ranging discussion of how we incorporate...
Vigilant Aerospace was a sponsor and presenter at the recent 2018 UAS Summit & Expo produced by UAS Magazine and held in Grand Forks, ND this past week. Vigilant Aerospace CEO, Kraettli L. Epperson, presented “New Models for Integration of Unmanned Aircraft...
Vigilant Aerospace will be the featured presenter at the inaugural meeting of the new DronePort Network, to be held at 2PM on Wednesday, September 12 in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. The DronePort Network is a new US trade organization designed to aid individuals and groups...
What is the future of unmanned aircraft in the US and how can we move forward? These are the questions that an article in Communications, the magazine of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) recently asked our CEO while profiling the Federal Aviation...
As we eagerly anticipate the release of our FlightHorizon 2.0 platform, we wanted to highlight a few of the changes that have us so excited. FlightHorizon 2.0 is more than an update to FlightHorizon 1.0. It is a complete re-write and re-architecture of the software,...
Vigilant Aerospace’s CEO, Kraettli L. Epperson, will be making a presentation titled “New Models for Integration of UAS into the National Airspace” at the upcoming UAS Summit & Expo 2018 being held on August 20 to 22 in Grand Forks, ND. The...
Vigilant Aerospace’s CEO will be discussing emerging sensor and processing technologies and artificial intelligence for beyond visual line-of-sight and autonomous drones on two different panels at the upcoming InterDrone 2018 conference. InterDrone is North...
Vigilant Aerospace will be moderating a panel on drones and cybersecurity and exhibiting at the upcoming UAS Tech Forum 2018 and has also announced a sponsorship of the event’s organizer, the US Small Business Administration’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems...
Vigilant Aerospace CEO Kraettli L. Epperson will be serving on the upcoming panel, “OKC Tech Transfer Success Stories: Sourcing Technology from Federal Labs,” at the Federal Laboratories Consortium (FLC) Far West and Mid-Continent Regions Annual Meeting...
The North Dakota UAS Integration Pilot Program (IPP) Team has announced that it will focus on techniques and technologies that enable safe, routine flights over people, night operations and flights beyond visual line of sight according to a new statement from the...
A new NASA report profiles three projects in which the agency has used Vigilant Aerospace’s FlightHorizon software to (1) demonstrate detect-and-avoid capabilities to advance integration of unmanned aircraft into the US national airspace; (2) help in development...
Business Insider has released the latest “Drone for the Enterprise” report featuring information and analysis on “how various industries are leveraging drones to increase efficiency and cut costs.” The report focuses on five industries that are...
Vigilant Aerospace Systems has been invited to join industry experts on the ASTM F38 Committee on Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS). Vigilant Aerospace’s FlightHorizon detect-and-avoid and airspace management system provides critical airspace awareness and...
We are honored to have been invited to speak at the 2018 Drone Focus conference in Fargo, North Dakota in front of 500+ UAS industry professionals this past week. Vigilant Aerospace CEO, Kraettli L. Epperson took to the main stage on May 30, 2018 – the first day...
The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) have announced the Integration Pilot Program Lead Participants (or “Lead Participants”) for the UAS Integration Pilot Program (UIPP). We were excited to announce this...
Vigilant Aerospace has been selected to provide detect-and-avoid and airspace safety systems using our FlightHorizon product to two Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Integration Pilot Program (UIPP) participants, selected and announced yesterday by the FAA. The two...
Vigilant Aerospace would like to thank everyone who attended our Solutions Theater presentation on “Emerging Technology and Solutions for UAS Airspace Integration and Active Detect-and-Avoid to Enable Beyond Visual Line-of-Sight Flight” last week at AUVSI...
Vigilant Aerospace is providing detect-and-avoid and airspace management solutions using its FlightHorizon product to two of the ten winning Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration Pilot Programs (UIPP) announced today by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and US...
Vigilant Aerospace is pleased to announce the launch of our new national sales office located in North Dakota and the addition of Business Development Manager Ryan Aasheim. “The UAS [unmanned aircraft systems] industry is entering a phase of rapid expansion and a...
A new market intelligence report from BIS Research forecasts the market for UAV sense-and-avoid systems to reach $3.6Bn by 2022 and names Vigilant Aerospace Systems as a key player in the rising market. The study, titled “Global UAV Sense and Avoid Systems...
Vigilant Aerospace CEO, Kraettli Epperson has been selected to present one of a limited number of “TED talk”-style presentations on the main stage at the upcoming 2018 Drone Focus Conference in Fargo, North Dakota on Wednesday, May 30th and Thursday, May...
Vigilant Aerospace is developing a version of FlightHorizon GCS, currently dubbed “FlightHorizonX,” that has been modified to support enhanced ADS-B transponders designed for supersonic aircraft and spacecraft tracking by NASA Armstrong Flight Research...
Vigilant Aerospace has published a new list of hardware that is known to be compatible with our FlightHorizon product line, particularly for unmanned aircraft detect-and-avoid purposes and for general airspace management and situational awareness. This list is...
Vigilant Aerospace is joining Oklahoma aviation and aerospace professionals at the upcoming “AERO Oklahoma Advocacy Day” at the Oklahoma State Capitol on April 24, 2018. The event is organized by the Oklahoma Aeronautics Commission, a commission appointed...
Vigilant Aerospace will be presenting at AUVSI XPONENTIAL 2018 on the first day of the conference, Tuesday, May 1 at 3:30 PM at the Solutions Theater in the XPO Hall. AUVSI XPONENTIAL is the world’s largest trade show for unmanned systems. The company’s...
FlightHorizon COMMANDER has been selected by the Commercial Supersonic Technology (CST) 2018-2019 development program at NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center to provide airspace situational awareness and detailed flight logging of research flights. FlightHorizon...
The FAA has released its latest Aerospace Forecast for 2018-2038 and the new forecast reports that the commercial sUAS market is growing faster than expected with more than 110,604 commercial sUAS registered by the end of 2017. Last year, we forecasted that the...
The FAA has released the most recent UAS Sightings Reports covering January 1, 2017 through September 30, 2017. The report indicates an increase of 99% in the average number of daily encounters reported between manned and unmanned aircraft in 2017 versus the 2015...
The latest article on the unmanned aircraft industry in Crunchbase quotes Vigilant Aerospace CEO Kraettli L. Epperson in the first few lines. The article, “21 Early-Stage Drone Companies To Watch Out For (Literally),” cites the company’s expertise in...
FlightHorizon was recently selected and used to provide airspace management, safety, detailed flight logging, and real-time flight formation management for the “NASA-DLR Multidisciplinary Airborne Experiment” (ND-MAX) research flights headed by the...
Vigilant Aerospace Systems is proud to be recognized as one of the “most active and relevant players in the drone industry” by Drone Industry Insights (DRONEII) as a part of the recently published 2018 Drone Market Environment Map. The company is listed as...
Vigilant Aerospace is delighted to share a quick video about what the team accomplished in 2017, including a tremendous amount of product development, flight programs, and industry engagement. Check out our End-of-Year 2017 Review video (2 min. 30 sec.) for a look...
NASA has published a new research paper on the beyond visual line-of-sight (BVLOS) flight testing and nearly 350 flight encounters carried out on the FlightHorizon detect-and-avoid and situational awareness system. The research paper, titled “µADS-B Detect and Avoid...
Vigilant Aerospace has announced a new investment from Kluz Ventures, through its commercial drone and robotics fund The Flying Object. The Flying Object (TFO) makes investments into US and international unmanned aerial systems technology and service companies that...
In November 2017, Vigilant Aerospace had the pleasure of making a joint presentation with NASA Armstrong at the R&D 100 Conference in Orlando, Florida. The presentation, titled “Commercializing Federal R&D: Secrets to Startup Success,” discussed...
Vigilant Aerospace has registered as an Interested Party in the FAA’s new UAS Integration Pilot Program (UIPP), which is designed to allow state, local and tribal governments in the US to create Innovation Zones in which advanced UAS operations can be carried out and...
The FAA’s new UAS Integration Pilot Program (UIPP) is the biggest new regulatory initiative and industry opportunity in the unmanned aircraft industry since the publication of Part 107 in August 2016. The UIPP is a newly announced initiative by the FAA to...
The FAA’s new UAS Integration Pilot Program (UIPP) is the biggest new regulatory initiative and industry opportunity in the unmanned aircraft industry since the publication of Part 107 in August 2016. The UIPP is a newly announced initiative by the FAA to...
Vigilant Aerospace CEO, Kraettli Epperson, recently spoke to the Oklahoma Venture Forum (OVF) about the company, its product and the future of unmanned aircraft in the US. Vigilant Aerospace’s FlightHorizon product helps to integrate unmanned aircraft into the...
Vigilant Aerospace has released its Q4 2017 edition of the Beyond Line-of-Sight Drone List and this latest edition is available for download now. The list was initially announced and first published earlier this year and contains a complete list of all commercial...
Digital Circuit published an article on Sept. 23rd about DJI’s new white paper, Unmanned Traffic Self-Management: How Smart Drones Will Find Their Own Way In the Airspace, which proposes simplified unmanned traffic management by means of radio transponders. The...
Based on recent flight testing at NASA, work with manned aircraft safety training providers, and long-range offshore public safety patrol flights, Vigilant Aerospace has added several new features to FlightHorizon. These include a broader range of transponder...
Vigilant Aerospace was recently featured in a Crunchbase News article “How Tech Helped Kick Ass During Hurricane Harvey” by Mary Ann Azevedo about how technology, including drones, was used to help in response efforts after Hurricane Harvey impacted the...
Vigilant Aerospace is excited to announce that FlightHorizon is being used in a major research project conducted by NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California in conjunction with NASA Kennedy Space Center in Titusville, Florida to measure the effect...
Ricardo Arteaga, NASA Research Engineer and inventor of the patented NASA technology behind our FlightHorizon product, was recently interviewed for the “Innovator Spotlight” series published by NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center. During the interview,...
Vigilant Aerospace’s product, FlightHorizon, has been named a 2017 R&D 100 Award Finalist. The Finalists were announced yesterday, August 9th, by R&D Magazine. Read the full story here. The R&D 100 Awards are presented annually to the top 100...
Vigilant Aerospace CEO Kraettli Epperson will be making a presentation titled “Safety Framework for Integration of UAS into the National Airspace” on August 8th at the UAS Business & Contracting Symposium organized by the Oklahoma Metro Technology...
Vigilant Aerospace CEO Kraettli Epperson will be presenting “Safer UAS Flights With NASA Tech” at the upcoming UAS Summit & Expo 2017 on Wednesday, August 23, 3:30 PM. The event is the 11th annual UAS Summit and Expo and one of the most established and...
Vigilant Aerospace CEO Kraettli Epperson is participating in a panel discussion on “End Users of UAS: Which Industries are benefiting from the technology?” at the upcoming US Small Business Administration’s UAS Cluster Initiative 2017 UAS Tech Forum...
Vigilant Aerospace recently completed live demonstration flights of FlightHorizon GCS using two unmanned aircraft to demonstrate and document the full safety lifecycle of detect, track, predict, avoid and recovery functions during multiple flight encounters. The...
Vigilant Aerospace has published a new FlightHorizon Buying Guide to help you through the process of selecting the right product for your operational needs. Whether you are flying a single small UAS for patrols within 20 miles of your ground control station, or are...
Vigilant Aerospace is announcing our new list of FlightHorizon™ products for both ground-based and on-board detect-and avoid, and our new integration and consulting services: FlightHorizon GCS™ – Uses an aviation transponder and, when available, ground-based radar,...
Vigilant Aerospace CEO Kraettli Epperson is discussing “The Future of Drone Sense-and-Avoid Technology” as a panelist at the upcoming 2017 InterDrone International Drone Conference and Exposition in Las Vegas in September. Panel Session: The Future of...
Recently, the Center for Advanced Aviation System Development (CAASD), operated for the FAA by the MITRE Corporation, published a new research study about the use of Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) systems by small, low-altitude unmanned aircraft...
Vigilant Aerospace announced today that the company has closed an investment from the Lubbock Angel Network out of Lubbock, Texas. Here is the full text of the announcement: Press Announcement – VAS Closes Investment Round with Lubbock Angel Network – June...
Vigilant Aerospace CEO Kraettli Epperson will be a panelist for the US Small Business Administration’s Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) Cluster Initiative on the upcoming webinar on “The ABCs of Developing a Quick Pitch to Attract Investment Capital and...
Vigilant Aerospace CEO Kraettli Epperson will be presenting on current capabilities and safety technology for industrial unmanned aircraft to executives in transit, shipping and the energy industry at the upcoming Houston-Galveston Area Council (H-GAC) meeting on July...
We have updated our “Explainer Video” about what FlightHorizon does for unmanned, commercial aircraft operators. If you’ve been looking for the short story on what we’re doing, here’s your chance to find out, fast! Click the...
Vigilant Aerospace has added new functions and made significant improvements to FlightHorizon using the flight data collected during our BVLOS flight testing at NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center in December 2016. Watch the 90-second video about our recent beyond...
Vigilant Aerospace, Cimarron Capital Partners, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Armstrong Flight Research Center (NASA AFRC) were recently honored on April 26, 2017 at the annual Meeting of the National Federal Laboratory Consortium (FLC) with...
An article released today by The Future of Everything as part of their “Ask the Thought Leaders ” blog series featured comments from Vigilant Aerospace CEO Kraettli Epperson and other experts in the unmanned aircraft industry. In light of the increasing...
The latest report on drone sightings and near-misses with commercial manned aircraft in the U.K. have highlighted an increasing need for drones to be more visible to manned aircraft and to be able to detect-and-avoid other aircraft. The U.K. Airprox Board (UKAB)...
The latest report on drone sightings and near-misses with commercial manned aircraft in the U.K. have highlighted an increasing need for drones to be more visible to manned aircraft and to be able to detect-and-avoid other aircraft. The U.K. Airprox Board (UKAB)...
Vigilant Aerospace is presenting at the upcoming AUVSI Xponential 2017, the largest trade show for unmanned systems, on the morning of May 11th at the Solutions Theater in the XPO Hall. FlightHorizon: Fully Autonomous Detect-and-Avoid for Unmanned Aircraft Systems...
Colin Snow, the “Drone Analyst,” who publishes research on unmanned aircraft systems at SkyLogic Research and is a top-billed columnist at DroneLife, published an analysis on March 10th in DroneLife about AirMap’s new proposal to issue digital...
The FAA released a new Aerospace Forecast for 2017-2037 on March 21 that includes both some startling 2016 numbers and a forecast for continued rapid growth of the commercial UAS industry in coming years. In addition, FAA Administrator Michael Huerta has delivered...
Wired Magazine recently published a fun video about the researchers and pilots of the awesome NASA Subscale Flight Research Lab at NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center: Flight Lab: Inside the Model Plane Shop Where NASA Flies the Future This is the same team that...
Vigilant Aerospace Systems was recently featured in an article by Oklahoma Magazine (OKMag.com) on commercial drone integration into the U.S. national airspace. From the article: “Our system provides the capability to detect-and-avoid aircraft and gives unmanned...
The FAA has announced the release of their 2016 drone sightings incident report, covering February through September, 2016: FAA Releases Updated Drone Sighting Reports The prior report, released in 2016, covered the same period in 2015. Comparing the two periods, the...
We’ve published a new, short video (90 seconds) about the beyond line-of-sight, detect-and-avoid flight tests of FlightHorizon conducted in December at NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. Click “play” below to start the...
Vigilant Aerospace, Cimarron Capital Partners, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Armstrong Flight Research Center (NASA AFRC) are being honored by the Federal Laboratory Consortium (FLC) with the nation’s highest technology transfer...
Vigilant Aerospace recently announced the successful completion of beyond visual line-of-sight testing of the latest version of the FlightHorizon detect-and-avoid system for unmanned aircraft. The tests were conducted in NASA Armstrong’s controlled airspace by...
Vigilant Aerospace has completed successful beyond line-of-sight flight testing of its new FlightHorizon detect-and-avoid, airspace management system for unmanned aircraft at NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. The tests demonstrated the...
DroneLife.com, a leading commercial drone news source, covered the release of Vigilant Aerospace’s Beyond Line-of-Sight Drone List. Excerpt from the article: “We believe that the future of unmanned aircraft in the US has arrived, and only a few obstacles remain...
Vigilant Aerospace officially announced the release of a drone list featuring commercial drones available in the US capable of beyond line-of-sight operations. Here is the full text of the announcement: Press Announcement – Vigilant Aerospace Releases List of...
The Northern Plains Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Test Site in North Dakota, an official test site for the Federal Aviation Administration’s Alliance for System Safety of UAS through Research Excellence program (ASSURE), is the first UAS test site to be granted...
Vigilant Aerospace has been selected to present at the upcoming Rice Alliance Information Technology and Web Venture Forum on Thursday, January 19, 2017 at Rice University in Houston, Texas. The event is organized by the Rice Alliance, a nationally-recognized...
Vigilant Aerospace Systems has become a testing and research partner in the FAA’s ASSURE program for unmanned aircraft safety, including the development and testing of detect-and-avoid and beyond visual line-of-sight flight systems. This announcement comes after...
Vigilant Aerospace announced today that the company has closed an investment from TONIC Fund of Fayettville, Arkansas. Here is the full text of the announcement: Press Announcement – VAS Closes Investment Round with TONIC Fund – December 12 2016 [PDF]...
Vigilant Aerospace announced today that it has partnered with the newly announced TechHire Initiative in Oklahoma City to support the expansion of the technology industry and give more people access to high-paying tech jobs. Here is the full text of the...
Our CEO and co-founder, Kraettli L. Epperson, recently spoke at the Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM) Convention 2016 on the panel titled “The Future of Industry Innovation to Enable UTM.” The panel featured several leaders in the unmanned aircraft...
As a part of ongoing research and development, Vigilant Aerospace completed an informal test flight on Friday, Nov. 18 at Wiley Post airport in Oklahoma City. This flight was primarily a shakedown test of several recent improvements to FlightHorizon in advance of our...
We have just opened our new Certified Education Partner Program. To further promote a safe national airspace, we are now seeking to partner with professional education organizations to provide training in flight safety, aircraft management and maintenance, manned and...
Vigilant Aerospace CEO, Kraettli L. Epperson, will be a featured panelist at the upcoming Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM) 2016 conference in Syracuse, NY on November 9, 2016. The conference, in its second year, is organized by NASA and the unmanned aviation industry...
The Beta Test Program has now expired, but you can contact us to sign up for a subscription or coordinate a demonstration here. Vigilant Aerospace Systems is excited to announce the FlightHorizon Beta Test Program is open and accepting applications. Free, Early...
Vigilant Aerospace is presenting at the upcoming 11th Annual INNOTECH Oklahoma Conference Beta Summit sponsored by InterWorks, Inc. on Tuesday, November 1, 2016 in Oklahoma City. INNOTECH is Oklahoma’s largest business and technology expo featuring Keynote...
Vigilant Aerospace Systems has signed a Space Act Agreement with NASA to further develop, test, and integrate the NASA patented Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) technology with transponders available on the market. Under the agreement, Vigilant...
On Thursday, October 13th, Vigilant Aerospace will join over 600 innovation experts, technologist, and industry executives at the Innovation Conference & Showcase (IC&S) in Houston, Texas. The event features high-tech startups in information technology,...
Vigilant Aerospace Systems, NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center, and Cimarron Capital Partners were honored with the award for Outstanding Commercialization Success by the Federal Labs Consortium (FLC) Far West Region at an awards ceremony in September 2016 for the...
Vigilant Aerospace Systems’ CEO, Kraettli L. Epperson, is participating in a panel discussion at the upcoming Technology Collaboration Center Remote Sensing Technologies event at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas on October 12, 2016. The event, sponsored...
Vigilant Aerospace Systems’ CEO, Kraettli L. Epperson, is participating in the Venture Pitch segment of the premier Accelerate the Heartland event in Wichita, Kansas on October 5th, 2016. The event features Keynote Speaker Victor W. Hwang, Vice President of...
We are very happy to announce our new Certified Reseller Partner Program preview. The Certified Reseller Partner Program is designed to provide trusted technical advisers who agree to sell our FlightHorizon product to their customers with an easy way to receive high...
