In this episode of the Drone Radio Show, Kraettli talks about Vigilant Aerospace, its detect-and-avoid system and how organizations are using drones to advance economic development.
“We focus on several different groups. We are very focused right now on enabling some really important public private partnerships that are developing. So we are supporting droneports, we’re supporting drone testing areas, even drone corridors, people who are developing delivery operations just as airports and highways or public infrastructure communities are investing in the required infrastructure to enable the future of aerospace, which is really autonomous aircraft from small drones, delivery drones and on up. And so we’re supporting several of those programs.
So we have work in the state of Oklahoma where we just made a really significant announcement with Department of Aerospace and Aeronautics here in Oklahoma about an investment in public infrastructure that they’re making to enable safe flight of drones. We have ongoing work with UND Aerospace at University of North Dakota and Grand Forks. We have an ongoing relationship with the Northern Plains UA test site in Grand Forks.
We’ve done projects in Alaska for the FAA. We have ongoing work with NASA Armstrong where we licensed those two patents. And then we have work for the Air Force where we have been tasked with developing an onboard system that does the same things that the larger ground-based systems do, but on a single board computer that runs on a larger drone, but some of them are smaller and will be eventually that system will very much be available for commercial users as well. So wide variety of customers.”
Listen to the full interview here.
DRONE RADIO SHOW TRANSCRIPT – FEB. 18, 2025
Host: Randy Goers with Vigilant Aerospace CEO Kraettli Epperson
Kraettli L. Epperson
Local communities are making an effort to compete for and put themselves at the leading edge of the next stage and the next generation of aviation. And so there are communities that are making an investment with basic infrastructure the same way you would build an airport or highway in order to allow those drones to fly safely in those places.
Narrator:
You’re listening to the Drone Radio Show podcast, the show about drones and the people who use them for business fun and research hosted by Randy Goers.
Randy Goers, Host (00:40):
Hello everyone, this is Randy Goers and welcome to the Drone Radio Show podcast episode 4 35. How is Vigilant Aerospace advancing airspace safety and regional economic growth? For that question, we turn to Oklahoma to speak with Crate Lee Epson, CEO of Vigilant Aerospace Systems. Vigilant Aerospace is a leading developer of Multi-sensor detect and avoid an airspace management software for UNC Crewed aircraft systems enabling safe and scalable beyond visual line of sight operations. Their flagship product Flight Horizon is built on two NASA patents and integrates data from multiple sources to provide real-time air traffic awareness and automatic avoidance maneuvers, preventing collisions and ensuring seamless a s integration into national airspace. In 2023, vigilant Aerospace was awarded a contract by the US Air Force to develop a detect and avoid system for their long endurance. A s reinforcing their position as a key player in aerospace innovation. The company was also recognized as the Aerospace innovator of the Year by 4 0 5 Business Magazine highlighting its contributions to advancing safety and efficiency and autonomous systems.
(02:16):
In addition to FlightHorizon, Vigilant Aerospace provides integration and consulting services. Working with partners like DronePort Network to support regional aerospace management and economic development initiatives greatly brings extensive expertise in unceded aircraft technology and airspace management as CEO of Vigilant Aerospace, he oversees the company’s contracts with NASA, the FAA and the US Air Force, and has participated in over 45 unceded aircraft flight tests, a recognized industry leader, he serves on the FA Beyond Visual Line of Sight Aviation rulemaking committee. He’s a member of the A-S-T-M-F 38 Committee on UAS technical standards and has co-authored multiple AI AA papers on autonomy and collision avoidance systems. He is also the co-inventor of four technology patents shaping the future of autonomous aviation. In this episode of the Drone Radio Show greatly talks about vigilant aerospace, it’s detect and avoidance system, and how organizations are using drones to advance economic development.
(03:40):
But before we hear from Kraettli, I want to stress that your support is the heartbeat of my podcast. Every episode is crafted with you and mine and your generous donations ensure that I can keep delivering the content you love, whether it’s the price of a coffee or a more substantial contribution, every bit helps to defray the cost of production. Donate today and be a vital part of the podcast continued journey to greatness. Donate $100 or more and receive an official drone radio show coffee mug to donate. Go to drone radio show.com/donate and if you can please subscribe to the podcast on your favorite platform and leave a nice review and rating on iTunes. It really helps improve the podcast ranking among the many thousands of active podcasts today. And by the way, if you have a great story on the use of drones that you’d like to share in a podcast, contact me at [email protected]. So let’s learn how Vigilant Aerospace is supporting economic development with Crate Lee Epson. Let’s pick up the interview where I ask Crate Lee to introduce himself.
Kraettli L. Epperson, Vigilant (04:57):
I’m Kraettli Epperson. I’m the CEO and founder of Vigilant Aerospace Systems.
Randy Goers, Host (05:03):
Greatly. Tell us about Vigilant Aerospace. What does the company do?
Kraettli L. Epperson, Vigilant (05:08):
Vigilant Aerospace is the leading developer of multi-sensor detect and avoid and aerospace management systems for drones, UAS RPAs and for advanced air mobility aircraft very focused on enabling both operators and communities to prepare for and to be able to have safe systems for flying all kinds of drones all the way up to large advanced air mobility aircraft and even military aircraft.
Randy Goers, Host (05:37):
What makes Vigilant Aerospace stand out in this field?
Kraettli L. Epperson, Vigilant (05:41):
Our system is an agnostic DA system. It’s based on two NASA patents and it uses a wide variety of sensors and we can rapidly and have proven that we can rapidly add new sensors as to become available on the market. So that might be, for example, a new radar or it might be different forms of remote. Id certainly integration with autopilots and because it has that modular structure, we’re able to quickly integrate with a wide variety of different aircraft and operators and we are not dependent on a particular setup or a particular environment to be able to adapt our system and use it to provide safety. It’s also designed to be standards compliant, so it is designed to provide what are called resolution advisories, which are the commands that detect and avoid system would provide to an autopilot or to a pilot, a remote pilot on the ground to deconflict the drone to get the drone away from and keep a safe distance from other aircraft. So that’s a really important part of what we do and it’s built in to all of our systems. So whether you’re using a ground-based system with larger sensors or distributed sensors in multiple locations or you’re using one of our onboard systems, those standards and that detect and avoid and resolution advisory process is built in as a baseline in the software. So those are some of the things that we do.
Randy Goers, Host (07:09):
Who are your primary customers or users?
Kraettli L. Epperson, Vigilant (07:12):
We focus on several different groups. We are very focused right now on enabling some really important public private partnerships that are developing. So we are supporting drone ports, we’re supporting drone testing areas, even drone corridors, people who are developing delivery operations just as airports and highways or public infrastructure communities are investing in the required infrastructure to enable the future of aerospace, which is really autonomous aircraft from small drones, delivery drones and on up. And so we’re supporting several of those programs. So we have work in the state of Oklahoma where we just made a really significant announcement with Department of Aerospace and Aeronautics here in Oklahoma about an investment in public infrastructure that they’re making to enable safe flight of drones. We have ongoing work with UND Aerospace at University of North Dakota and Grand Forks. We have an ongoing relationship with the Northern Plains UA test site in Grand Forks. We’ve done projects in Alaska for the FAA. We have ongoing work with NASA Armstrong where we licensed those two patents. And then we have work for the Air Force where we have been tasked with developing an onboard system that does the same things that the larger ground-based systems do, but on a single board computer that runs on a larger drone, but some of them are smaller and will be eventually that system will very much be available for commercial users as well. So wide variety of customers.
Randy Goers, Host (08:51):
Do you focus primarily on smaller sites and organizations or are you also involved with larger airports and high traffic areas?
Kraettli L. Epperson, Vigilant (09:01):
Most of the development is going on right now around communities that want to enable drone operations, meaning that either they have some kind of testing and development and maybe economic development mission and they want to be at the cutting edge of aviation. So some of them have a mix of different types of traffic for operating airports. We actually do have some products that we’re rolling out that are designed to help those airports be aware of drones that might be intruding on a runway, for example. So we have some products that we’re announcing and rolling out specifically for example, small airports, industrial parks, power plants, people like that who need to be aware of drones that might be coming over their facility. And so that’s where you might have more traffic and where you really have concerns about safety
Randy Goers, Host (10:00):
With the rise of drone use and autonomous aircraft. What are the biggest airspace safety challenges today and how does Vigilant Aerospace address them?
Kraettli L. Epperson, Vigilant (10:11):
So we are watching and anticipating the emergence of more beyond visual line of sight flight of drones. This is something that I think a lot of people that are involved with commercial drone flight are very interested in right now. I’ve served on the FAS aviation rulemaking committee for Beyond Visual Line of Sight flight of drones, and those rules are in drafting with the FAA and have been for a little while now. But as we move towards new regulations that are going to make beyond visual line of sight flight of drones much more common. The primary concern is to enable drones to be aware of, so remote pilots and even onboard systems to be able to know about other aircraft and to be able to avoid them at a safe distance. And so that is the top concern and that involves the thing that we think about a lot based on some of the technology I was just describing is that some aircraft that a drone might encounter are cooperative in that they have a transponder and they’re saying, here I’m, and so you can pick that up and you can avoid them.
(11:15):
And then some aircraft are non-cooperative, they don’t have a transponder, they’re not required to have one, and that’s when other sensors have to come into play. And so we’re really focused on that core safety problem of deconfliction between drones and other aircraft. I’m sure everyone has been following the fact that there was a drone that ran into the wing of a Canadian firefighting aircraft recently in California and that was a real problem. And so keeping drones safely away from other aircraft is absolutely the advisory committees and others that I have been involved with at the F aa think about that core safety problem for drones. Very excited as the industry moves towards routine beyond visual line of sight flight of drones, I think everybody is, but solving that problem is really the core thing that we think about.
Randy Goers, Host (12:12):
Looking back on the drone sightings that were reported in the Northeast in December, would a system like yours have helped clarify what was happening?
Kraettli L. Epperson, Vigilant (12:22):
I don’t have any special information about the situation in New Jersey, but the systems that we designed, we do have small radars that we use that are specially designed and tuned to track drones, and we also use an integrated remote ID receiver with those radars in our software Flight Horizon. And so that allows us to do correlation across a remote ID track. So you have a drone that is flying with remote id, which is of course the kind of radio license plate doesn’t go very far, the distance is short, but it’s supposed to be broadcasting this radio license plate and the use of the radar to also pick up that drone and say, ah, this is a drone that’s broadcasting remote id. Or the radar picks up a track and says, well, okay, that looks like a cna that looks like a 7 47 and this looks like a drone and there’s no remote ID transponder that we can see yet for that drone.
(13:24):
So we do have software that can perform that function. And so for a jurisdiction, an airport, somebody who finds themself in a situation where they’re concerned about drones that are not broadcasting remote id for example, you could use this system to track those aircraft and then say, okay, we can figure out what these are. They’re transmitting, we know who that is, and then these aircraft are not. And the system can then classify those and say, well, that’s a regular aircraft. I can see them using their transponder on A DSB and that’s another aircraft. It looks like a helicopter. It doesn’t have a D dsb, but the radar and the system is classifying it. So there are ways to do this.
Randy Goers, Host (14:09):
Does the system allow one to go back and review activity for any specific time period?
Kraettli L. Epperson, Vigilant (14:14):
It has logging built in and it’s got a wide variety of logging. We have essentially per sensor logging, so we’re going to log what a radar or an A DSB receiver or remote ID receiver picks up and what the autopilot sends. So we’ll connect to the drone that you’re flying as a remote pilot and we’ll track the telemetry from that drone and then we can put that all into a report. We can look at it afterwards, we can replay it. We actually sometimes for some of our projects do analysis on that to see how close aircraft got each other. Lot of logging. That’s an important part of what our software does.
Randy Goers, Host (14:53):
Your system is called Flight Horizon. How is it used by economic development organizations to achieve their goals?
Kraettli L. Epperson, Vigilant (15:01):
A couple of the projects I mentioned earlier are definitely efforts by communities, whether it’s a local research airport like UND Aerospace or Skyway 36 in Tulsa, which is a dreamt work that is owned by the Osage Nation, for example, and is right on the edge of Tulsa to what the state of Oklahoma is doing with a large scale portable airspace management system with multiple radars that we are knitting together and managing in Flight Horizon. All of those are projects in which local communities are making an effort to compete for and put themselves at the leading edge of the next stage and the next generation of aviation in the us. Right? We know that autonomous aviation, that drones and advanced air mobility are the direction that the industry is headed. There are massive advantages and of course there’s really important national competitive reasons why the US needs to continue to invest in and continue to develop the autonomous aircraft and overall a m and UA industry.
(16:15):
And so there are communities that are making an investment with basic infrastructure the same way you would build an airport or highway in order to allow those drones to fly safely in those places. And so as I described, we’re involved in some of those by providing that airspace safety system, and I can tell you a little bit more about how that system works, but the first and foremost thing we’re doing is providing support, managing the infrastructure to allow those areas and communities to authorize those drones. They have to go through a process with the aa obviously at some point in that process to get the exact types of authorizations that they need. But the first step is to get these systems in place.
Randy Goers, Host (16:58):
Can you describe your partnership with drone ports and their role in your projects?
Kraettli L. Epperson, Vigilant (17:03):
Drone Port Network is headquartered in Oklahoma, but has all kinds of projects that it’s developing both in Oklahoma and across the United States. It’s a company that’s really focused on the economic development side of how you get drones and specifically drone ports. So how you enable specific locations to be competitive. It is run by Craig Mahaney, who is a former air traffic controller and a former officer who has huge amounts of knowledge about airspace safety and really about how airports and drone ports can operate. And so we’re really excited to work with Drone Port Network as they begin to help communities with developing specific strategies and mechanisms for getting these projects off the ground.
Randy Goers, Host (17:53):
If an industrial park manager wanted to integrate drones for economic development, how would they proceed?
Kraettli L. Epperson, Vigilant (18:01):
I always ask people to look to who the customer is and then to develop their effort around serving that customer. It’s really all about what you need at your location. So obviously if you are serving agricultural users, then you have a particular type of air traffic surveillance and a particular type of safety case that you’re going to be able to make. You can actually have some advantages there. You can operate under slightly different rules if you want to enable cargo, either small scale drone delivery all the way up to larger cargo, eventually that’s a particular type of system you want to develop and a particular type of effort and investment that you want to make to move towards that. So you’re ready. But it really has to do with who the customer is. So if you’re doing, for example, if you’ve got an industrial park, you probably just might have a couple concerns, right?
(18:49):
You might want to know who is flying around. And so that would be a process of setting up systems to track that and monitor it. And then you might want to enable drones at your facility, whether you’re doing inspections of your facility, particularly if you have pipelines or you’ve got any sort of liquids, fuels, other things that are being processed or flowing through or you’ve got manufacturing going on. So lots of uses for drones, and as you do much more advanced use of drones at a facility like that, and we have these discussions ongoing with multiple facilities, they want to be able to fly those drones as close to autonomously as possible. And so a system like ours can enable you to get authorizations to do that type of flight. As an example, we have a project right now we Oklahoma State University working with NOAA on atmospheric monitoring with autonomous drones that act a little bit like the mezzo net towers that collect weather data.
(19:48):
We have a lot of extreme weather here in Oklahoma, and so it’s a big national effort to be able to study weather, and there’s a huge amount of interest in using drones to sample weather data up at higher altitudes. And so we’re supporting a project, for example, to provide safety for those drones as they begin to figure out how to do that. So those are just kind of examples of the practical use cases that are emerging for drones and that need this type of safety system to operate. So whether it’s an industrial park or manufacturing plant, power plant, pipeline system, electrical system, or it’s weather safety for a whole region or a whole state, this is where the industry is advancing towards really rapidly.
Randy Goers, Host (20:29):
Do organizations need to have a clear plan for drone operations before contacting you, or do you help them develop that plan?
Kraettli L. Epperson, Vigilant (20:39):
Yeah, oftentimes I do know. And so in that situation, we come in and our job is to help build up essentially a safety case and to ask the right questions to put together the system that’s going to be needed with the various components at the right places. And eventually all this is going to be onboard, and so we’re rapidly advancing towards that as well. But for a facility, yes, we’re going to come in, we’re going to ask those questions, we’re going to put a plan together, we’ll put a proposal together. And the nice thing about our system is we’ve already done the work and spent the money to integrate all of those sensors. So it’s not a big science experiment. You already have radars if that’s what’s needed and other systems and you haven’t in a working piece of software that you can subscribe to as soon as you’ve got the system in place and start using. And so yes, that’s where we step in. If you already have your business plan, you already know who your operators are going to be and what they’re going to fly where and why they’re going to fly, we can help design the safety case around that and get the system in place relatively quickly to enable that.
Randy Goers, Host (21:45):
Can you discuss the recent announcement about your work in Oklahoma and the role in their advanced air mobility in UAS infrastructure investment?
Kraettli L. Epperson, Vigilant (21:53):
Yeah, so we’re really excited about that. So that was the Oklahoma Department of Aeronautics and Aerospace, and they have signed an agreement and a contract with us to put together a air traffic surveillance and airspace management system that is a mobile system with multiple air traffic surveillance radars. So these are larger radars that are on trailers, so they can be moved around, but they’re going to start using them initially at the Clinton Sherman Airport, which is one of the space ports in the United States to enable larger drones to be flown there beyond visual line of sight. These radars have been approved, these types of radars have been used for that type of approval and operations in the past. So we’re really excited about that. Our software and our project management of that system is to bring in the airspace management to knit the whole system together to bring in all those data sources, so transponders, radars, other things, and integration to the autopilots of those drones to create that 3D picture so that you have a concise common operating picture across all the aircraft that might be in that space, and particularly the drones that would be flying there.
(23:11):
And it’s an exciting project, it’s an initiative here in Oklahoma to enable that type of drone flight here, and it’s mobile, so it’s a system that can be moved to other locations throughout the state, other airports that want to get involved in the project and other places that the state of Oklahoma and ODA would decide to use it for. And so our role is in having the expertise and the software to manage all of those systems together and to allow it to be and allow that airspace to be managed from a central location or on a distributed basis. So it’s a hosted system and multiple people can look at it as needed and the remote pilots can use it especially to be safe. So we’re really excited about it.
Randy Goers, Host (24:01):
When you say the system is mobile, what does that mean?
Kraettli L. Epperson, Vigilant (24:05):
These are larger radars. They’re from a company called Detect, and they are on trailers in this case. We also work at UND Aerospace, for example. They have one that is built into a truck, also a detect radar, and they have detect radars on top of their building. So these are slightly larger. They do go on 20 to 80 foot towers that can be rolled up and down as needed, and then they can be moved around with a truck pulling a trailer.
Randy Goers, Host (24:32):
What do you hope to accomplish in this project?
Kraettli L. Epperson, Vigilant (24:35):
It’s really for two purposes, as most of these projects are. So it is for r and d initially to enable drone operators who are building out their operations in Oklahoma to be able to fly safely. There’s a certain amount of work you have to do to build that safety case and then get authorizations from the FAA. So projects like this, really all the projects that I’ve mentioned have some role in building that safety case and getting authorizations. And then the second thing is this is a great model for permanent installation of systems that will enable commerce, that will enable these drones to be flown for long range surveys for delivery for people moving eventually. And this is an important next stepping stone and milestone on the journey to full use of autonomous aircraft for commercial purposes. And it’s a necessary step. You have to have these safety systems in place, they have to be demonstrated, and then you’ve got to get authorizations. And so that’s right on that path to moving towards commercial. Skyway 36, for example, also has one of these radars that is going up and that’s going to serve, I mean, a portion of Tulsa at minimum.
Randy Goers, Host (25:50):
Can you give us a sense as to what ultimately changes when systems like Flight Horizons are fully implemented?
Kraettli L. Epperson, Vigilant (25:57):
And so right now, typically with a small drone for example, you have to fly within visual line of sight, you have to be able to see your drone or the other two alternatives are you can build up your own infrastructure, what I jokingly call a bring your own radar approach, which has really been what a lot of organizations have had to do. Or you can begin to have essentially public and third party infrastructure. So when you want to go fly somewhere, you don’t build your own airport typically, right? You can buy a ticket and built into that ticket as the cost of using the airport, using the tower, and using all the things that go running an airport. And the same is beginning to happen with drones and drone ports and the systems required to fly them safely. And so that’s the big difference and that’s the big difference that systems like ours make in the industry is you can begin to have that longer range flight. So you can move from visual line of sight to beyond visual line of sight flight, but equally importantly, you can do so with shared infrastructure so you don’t have to own all your own systems own, you can share them the same way you share an airport with other people. You can share this infrastructure to make that happen. And that is going to be revolutionary for the industry that it’s just going to change what we can do with drones in this country. Fundamental.
Randy Goers, Host (27:17):
And the mobility feature would allow an organization to operate miles away from the pilot’s location, right?
Kraettli L. Epperson, Vigilant (27:24):
Potentially. Yeah. The idea of, and in fact, for example, that NOAA project where the idea is that you have drones stationed that on the hour have to go up and do atmospheric sampling or weather prediction and weather safety, those are unsupervised systems that have built in safety. I mean, they don’t exist yet, right? This is a project that’s a very exciting project that’s being developed, but the idea is that those will have a central command center somewhere and they will be able to fly autonomously and be able to monitor air traffic before they take off each hour. And in order to have a system like that, you have to have that distributed safety and monitoring system built in. And so that’s an example. Otherwise, being able to manage large scale drone delivery operations, you’ve got to be able to have this remote distributed safety process system and network sensors to enable that to happen. And so it’s really just going to revolutionize what we think about drones being able to
Randy Goers, Host (28:28):
Do. How do you see the integration of UAS evolving over the next several years considering the regulatory, technological and community factors?
Kraettli L. Epperson, Vigilant (28:39):
So all these things go hand in hand. I think it’s a little bit of a cliche to say as I’ll go ahead and say the technology has galloped ahead of where the regulations are, and we all want obviously safe operations, we want safe aircraft. And so the result is that companies like ours are doing the research and setting up the systems to do the research and demonstrate that these systems can fly safely. So that’s an important part of this. You asked whether the systems are already in place. So what’s interesting is these systems depend on communications. So you’ve got very widespread 5G cellular communications. The cellular companies and the 5G companies have been very involved in the drone industry for several years because they understand how critical that is, and the operators all understand that. But we also have satellite communications. So a lot of the systems that we’re rolling out, almost all the systems I’ve described to you have multiple communication paths to get data back and forth to cloud-based servers that we operate.
(29:45):
For example, we also in some cases have redundant servers both at each individual sensor site, and in some cases we’ve got redundant sensors on the aircraft as well. So communications infrastructure is enabling a lot of this. It’s very advanced now and has satellite as either a primary or a secondary backup pretty much at all times. So it’s exciting to be in a position where that infrastructure is available. Right now we’re in a position where the regulations are changing and we expect them to evolve to allow more and more of this type of flight to happen. The F aa Keysight and the DW area is pioneering some of the UTM and drone to drone integration work, and that’s informing everything that operators are doing. And then in terms of community integration, this is the way I think about it. There are communities that are deciding to compete for this sort of commerce that really want to compete to be involved in the next generation of aviation. And then there are communities that are going to lag behind. And I think that’s natural. I think that happens whenever there is an innovative change or a technological change. But there are definitely communities that are competing to be the nexus of these types of flights. They want to be manufacturing these aircraft. They want to be maintaining and supporting these aircraft. They want the services delivered from these aircraft. And so those are the communities that are going to be at the forefront of this.
Randy Goers, Host (31:16):
What’s next for Vigilant Aerospace?
Kraettli L. Epperson, Vigilant (31:19):
We have several other projects on a similar scale to the most recent couple of projects that we’ve announced. The most recent to our UND aerospace project, we announced just earlier in the year our ODA project here in Oklahoma that we’ve just announced. I’ll just preview and say we’ve got several other projects in the works that are really focused on rolling out this important infrastructure to enable the industry. So we’re going to keep going down that road, keep identifying communities and these really important public private partnerships that need these things and then provide them with a system that’s already integrated where they don’t have to go out and decide which equipment they’re going to buy and then integrate it themselves. So that’s what we’re really going to be focused on. At the same time, we do have our onboard system, which there is increasing interest in, and which for certain types of aircraft, obviously mostly larger, there’s a huge amount of interest as the advanced, your mobility industry ramps up and there are more and more large aviation companies developing these types of aircraft. They need that onboard DA function and system. And so we also have a team that is just focused on making that happen for those manufacturers primarily. And then the operators of those aircraft and a mix of those, some of those are military as well. There’s a lot of civilian manufacturers, but there’s also some military.
Randy Goers, Host (32:45):
Can you share what your company is doing in the military sector and how it relates to the commercial work?
Kraettli L. Epperson, Vigilant (32:51):
I’ll just say we have a product called FlightHorizon Pilot. This is our onboard detect and avoid system. It uses multiple systems onboard and then communicates both to an autopilot onboard the aircraft and then also sends data down to the ground control station and to our flight horizon tempo system on the ground. So you can supervise and monitor that onboard system. And that is what we receive an Air Force project to work on. The thing that’s important to remember is that Air Force aircraft in the US and really throughout the world, they have the same problems that civilian aircraft have in that they want to fly safely. They often need to fly in areas where there might be other aircraft, civilian aircraft, passenger aircraft, cargo aircraft, even other military aircraft that it’s very, very important that they not get too close to. And so it’s a common problem across all types of aircraft.
(33:46):
And so we have this dual use product, meaning that it’s useful for both military operators, military aircraft, and civilian aircraft. And the military by doing this project with us, has expressed their interest and investment in that important safety function of detect and avoid. And we’ve also actually had, and there’s some information on our blog about this, had our ground-based system used by the 49th operating group at Holman Air Force Base, for example, with some of their RPAs. So I would just say there’s a common need for safe systems and particularly moving with larger aircraft towards onboard systems across military operations the same way there is in civilian aircraft.
Randy Goers, Host (34:27):
How long have you been involved in the drone industry?
Kraettli L. Epperson, Vigilant (34:30):
So I’m at about 10 years now.
Randy Goers, Host (34:33):
And what have you learned in those last 10 years about the industry?
Kraettli L. Epperson, Vigilant (34:37):
It’s interesting. The industry moves really in fits and starts. There really are these periods of stability that are punctuated by periods of really rapid development, including both technological development and new rulemaking. And I feel like we’re entering one of those periods of rapid development. And I see that having been in the industry, having seen that in 2016 with the launch of the part 1 0 7 rules and what that did, and we’re, I think about to enter another period for small drones in which we’re going to see a lot of changes. The regulations do continue to lag behind the technology, but we all know that that technology really has to be proven for the regulator to want to see it in common use. And so there’s a pathway to making that happen. So following that path, it’s really important. It’s what we do. It’s the way that we operate.
(35:25):
We are very much trying to support the rules and the regulations and enable people to utilize those regulations. That’s really the fundamental philosophy that we’ve been taught. And the other thing I’ll just end with is everything is impossible until it’s suddenly possible. And we’ve just seen this over and over in this industry that there are long periods of time, long periods of sort of pessimism, and then suddenly there’s a lot of optimism because something changes. So we’ll have to see what happens. But those are things that as a company and me individually, we’ve been taught over the period of time we’ve been working in this industry.
Randy Goers, Host (36:00):
And for my final question greatly, what message would you like to leave regarding the future of the drone industry?
Kraettli L. Epperson, Vigilant (36:07):
I think the important thing to remember is that drones and all kinds of autonomous aircraft are, or they’re not going away, they’re becoming increasingly important to national competitiveness. And this goes for all forms of autonomous mobility, whether it’s ground-based or sea-based flying in the air. And so getting involved in it, whether that is investment or being personally involved in it, is really important. I mean, the autonomous systems are inevitable, and there’s just a question of how they develop and where they take us. And so obviously I would say as a nation, we want to be at the leading edge of that. And so I would just encourage everybody to be aware and educate yourself about the future of autonomy because it’s not going anywhere.
Randy Goers, Host (37:01):
That’s it for episode 4 35 of the Drone Radio Show. I hope you enjoyed hearing from Great Lee Epson of Vigilant Aerospace. I want to thank greatly for taking the time to speak with me. If you want to learn more about Vigilant Aerospace or want to connect with Kraly, check out the [email protected]. If you like the Drone Radio show, then please subscribe and share, write a glowing review on iTunes. And if you’re able donate to keep the podcast going, go to drone radio show.com/donate. And thanks for listening. Your support means a lot to me, and I hope you’ll listen to more episodes of the Drone Radio Show podcast to hear how others are using drones for business fun and research. For the Drone Radio Show, I’m Randy Goers.
Narrator (37:59):
This has been the Drone Radio Show podcast. More information on today’s show can be found on our website at www.droneradioshow.com. If you are using drone technology for business fun or research and would like to share your experience on the show, please visit our website and fill out a guest appearance application. And don’t forget to follow us on your favorite social media channels.
Vigilant Aerospace is the leading developer of multi-sensor detect-and-avoid and airspace management software for uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS or drones). The company’s product, FlightHorizon, is based on two NASA patents and uses data from multiple sources to display a real-time picture of the air traffic around a UAS and to provide automatic avoidance maneuvers to prevent collisions. The software is designed to meet industry technical standards, to provide automatic safety and to allow UAS to safely fly beyond the sight of the pilot. The software has won multiple industry awards and the company has had contracts and users at NASA, the FAA, the U.S. Department of Defense and with a variety of drone development programs. Visit our website at www.VigilantAerospace.com