Trevor Woods & Erin Roesler,, Northern Plains UAS Test Site | Dawn of Autonomy | Episode 118

"Livestreamed: 2026-04-22T15:00:00.000Z Sponsor of the Month: Airspace Link Website: https://airspacelink.com/ Episode Sponsor: Northern Plains UAS Test Site Website: npuasts.com Episode Description: This week on Dawn of Autonomy, we continue our “UTM and Infrastructure” month, sponsored by Airspace Link, with Trevor Woods and Erin Roessler from the Northern Plains UAS Test Site, home of North Dakota’s groundbreaking Vantis network. Trevor serves as Executive Director of the test site and helped shape the original concept for Vantis, the first statewide BVLOS UAS system in the United States, while Erin is the Deputy Executive Director, a commercial pilot and instructor who has designed UAS training programs and contributes to leading industry standards bodies. In this episode, Trevor and Erin explain how Vantis combines aviation grade surveillance, command and control, and UTM services into shared infrastructure that lets operators run recurring BVLOS missions at scale rather than one off trials. They discuss what it takes to design and administer a statewide network, how FAA processes like NTAP and BVLOS waivers interact with infrastructure based safety mitigations, and why North Dakota’s ecosystem has become a proving ground for delivery, inspection, public safety, and AAM use cases. Tune in for a deep dive into how the Northern Plains UAS Test Site and Vantis are turning BVLOS from a waiver exercise into an infrastructure enabled service, and what their work signals about the future of UTM, airspace integration, and cross state autonomy corridors. "