Great progress is being made toward integrating uncrewed aircraft systems into the national airspace system. With the announcement of the Federal Aviation Administration’s new Part 108 and Part 146 draft rules, the United States is moving from waiver-bound drone missions toward routine, rules-based operations that share the National Airspace System with crewed aircraft. Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) aircraft, which are designed to carry goods and people from point to point, are also being developed with a high degree of autonomy and are the subject of new rulemaking. But getting to routine flights of both isn’t about one breakthrough; it’s about aligning sensing, software and industry technical standards and then proving they work together to provide safety.

The core problems in airspace integration and the solutions taking shape can be explored using recent work by Vigilant Aerospace and deployments of its FlightHorizon airspace management system in North Dakota and Oklahoma, along with a recent U.S. Air Force research project. These practical examples of how the technical threads are being woven together can illuminate the path forward.

The Foundational Problem: See and Avoid Without a Pilot on Board
Crewed pilots use eyes, instruments and air traffic control to maintain separation. Drones and AAM aircraft do not typically have a pilot on board, so they must achieve an equivalent level of safety through sensors, track correlation, and procedures. This process is called detect-and-avoid or DAA and requires drones to be able to reliably detect and track both cooperative (ADS-B transponder-equipped) and noncooperative aircraft, then issue timely resolution guidance to the autopilot or the remote pilot to avoid conflicts. To be credible, the system must comply with an industry technical standard that regulators accept and the public trusts.

Two architectures have emerged to meet those requirements:
Ground-based surveillance (GBS). One approach to solving the detect-and-avoid and airspace management problem is to install ground-based radars and ADS-B receivers in addition to a connection to the drone or AAM autopilot. This solution has the strength of being usable today, accepted by the FAA for beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) flight and providing a highly safe and reliable operation. A single network of radars and transponder receivers can support a wide range of autonomous aircraft and can be ideal to support flight ranges, training and testing areas, and known industrial or agricultural operations. The downside, of course, is that radars can be expensive and the entire system is in a fixed location that must be prepared and known ahead of time, even if the radars are mobile.

Onboard DAA. An alternative to ground-based infrastructure is an onboard DAA system. This involves using a small radar or equivalent optical sensor onboard the drone. On a larger AAM aircraft, this might be a suite of radars or sensors. In addition, an ADS-B receiver and advanced software on the aircraft are installed to collect and use the data for automatic avoidance, resolving conflicts onboard. The advantage of this is that the safety system travels with the aircraft and is independent of ground infrastructure. The big disadvantage is that currently, only larger drones and AAM aircraft have the capability to carry and use the sensors, which add weight and draw power. The use of onboard sensors is still being developed by companies like Vigilant Aerospace, and while onboard systems are ideal in many ways, they are still in their early stages.

What we know today is that the likely end state will be hybrid, with ground sensors gradually giving way to more advanced onboard sensors on larger drones. Operations will rely on ground-based coverage where available, and use onboard sensors on larger, more advanced drones and AAM aircraft in areas without such coverage.

UND Aerospace Shows Ground-Based Sensors Support a Range of Aircraft
At Gorman Field in Grand Forks, North Dakota, a recent training exercise was conducted by UND Aerospace, the North Dakota Army and Air National Guard and the U.S. Air Force. Aircraft tracking and display were provided using ground-based radars from DeTect Inc. and FlightHorizon airspace management software. The exercise included both small UAS, the university’s Insitu ScanEagle UAS and an MQ-9 Reaper and RQ-4 Global Hawk flown from the nearby Grand Forks Air Force Base.

Visitors could watch a single FlightHorizon airspace management display that correlated DeTect radar data with ADS-B transponder data to track and display multiple aircraft in real time. The exercise also demonstrated a live-virtual-constructive training environment, allowing instructors to inject scenarios while monitoring real flights.
FlightHorizon provided a common operating picture to let crews train and operate with shared information and demonstrated the ability of ground-based sensors to display and manage a complex, mixed fleet today. These kinds of events can improve military readiness and generate the performance data needed to prove the safety of new technologies.

Oklahoma Goes Big with Distributed Radars,
Turning Coverage into a Service
To scale beyond a single range, coverage must span meaningful distances. At the Oklahoma Air & Space Port at Burns Flat in western Oklahoma, the Oklahoma Department of Aerospace and Aeronautics is building a radar-based flight corridor that began with a cloud-based FlightHorizon software installation supported by several DeTect air traffic surveillance radars. This network of sensors is expanding from roughly 5,000 square kilometers of coverage to about 10,000 square kilometers later this year. The network is managed by Vigilant Aerospace and integrated into FlightHorizon TEMPO, an online service that correlates radar and transponder data from multiple sensors and presents a unified air picture to operators logged in from anywhere in the country.

The system is designed to pioneer and demonstrate an advanced air traffic surveillance network and deliver airspace management as a service. In this model, championed by the FAA in its proposed Part 146 rules, rather than each drone operator buying their own sensors, an operating area, range or region provides qualified infrastructure to which operators can subscribe through an Automated Data Service Provider (ADSP). In addition to the ADSP operating model, use of uncrewed traffic management protocols and standards are expected to form the basis for delivering these services to end-user operators, through networked software.

This approach has the advantages of spreading infrastructure costs across many users, providing pre-certified infrastructure for operators to use and helps to streamline FAA authorizations. For corridors along pipelines and powerlines, urban delivery flights and AAM flights, “coverage as a service” provides a pragmatic path to scale.

Working at the Frontier of Onboard Detect and Avoid with the US Air Force
Even as ground networks spread and ADSP’s emerge, universal integration will also require aircraft that carry their own situational awareness. Vigilant Aerospace recently completed a Small Business Innovation Research contract for the U.S. Air Force utilizing the company’s dual-use military/civilian onboard DAA system, FlightHorizon PILOT. The system incorporates miniature airborne radars with ADS-B-In receivers and autopilot integration to provide a complete DAA capability. The project made advancements in multi-radar integration, standards compliance and track correlation. The software is designed to be platform-agnostic so it can be adapted for larger military aircraft, AAM aircraft or mid-sized drones without major modification.

Onboard DAA is at the cutting edge technically and represents the likely future of drone integration as sensors and computers continue to shrink in size while capabilities grow. Ultimately, onboard DAA can enable autonomous aircraft to go where needed, independent of infrastructure.

Regulation and Standards: The Scaffolding for Scale
The FAA’s proposed Part 108 and Part 146 rules would move BVLOS drone flights from case-by-case waivers to a standing rule. The proposals are notable for aligning with industry consensus standards as “acceptable means of compliance,” including standards like like ASTM F3442-25 and RTCA DO-365C. The proposed rules also contemplate formal roles for automated data service providers, which would provide preapproved sensor networks and infrastructure for drone operators. In addition, the draft rules propose risk-based tiers to match system requirements and procedures to air and ground risk, avoiding one-size-fits-all mandates and allowing the rules to cover drones up to 1,320 pounds and 25-foot wingspan.

This alignment gives drone designers and operators a clearer path to BVLOS flight, specifies relevant technical standards and provides greater certainty, clearing the way for planning and investment.

A Practical Roadmap
A near-term path forward is emerging:
• Phase I – Starting now: More drone operators, support companies, ranges and local governments stand up ADSP-style coverage; advanced drone operations testing and training expand; focused trials of low-SWaP onboard systems and advanced surveillance networks, anticipating Part 146, begin to emerge.
• Phase II – After Part 108 is adopted: Transition from waiver-heavy approvals to rule-based BVLOS tied to standards begins; hybrid operations (ground coverage where available, onboard DAA elsewhere) begin to happen; early cargo and inspection operations under the rules begin in earnest, growing toward commercial scale.
• Phase III and beyond: Broader ADSP network availability, radars where required, and UTM adoption leads to widespread autonomous delivery and inspection flight of drones BVLOS. New onboard DAA systems and certification across airframes emerge; interoperability among ADSP providers, UTM services, and OEM avionics matures; AAM aircraft begin experimenting in select U.S. markets using the same detect-and-avoid building blocks and coordination pioneered by the smaller UAS.

Current Technology Projects Light the Path Forward
The recent Gorman Field exercises demonstrate that radar, ADS-B and advanced software can manage mixed fleets and support advanced flights and training. The Oklahoma flight operations area around the Oklahoma Air and Spaceport demonstrates the power of networked sensors and advanced software to provide shared services and airspace safety for multiple users. The Air Force Research Laboratory project advances the onboard DAA state-of-the-art so that larger autonomous aircraft will be able to safely leave the umbrella of ground infrastructure to fly where needed. Across all of these projects, the same common tracking and safety tasks—collect data, correlate, predict, and deconflict—are carried out by the system, offering a path forward and filling a critical technical gap in safety.

The Bottom Line
U.S. drone integration will be judged by uneventful missions: inspections completed in all weather, cargo delivered on schedule, emergency crews gaining minutes when they matter, and passenger aircraft noticing nothing unusual while sharing the sky.
The future of drone and AAM integration into the national airspace will be a multi-layered system that is based on industry technical standards, operates under FAA rules for routine BVLOS flight and utilizes increasingly advanced, longer-range and larger aircraft. More advanced ground-based sensors will give way to onboard systems where feasible, and much higher degrees of autonomy will emerge. The demonstration of current technologies, like FlightHorizon with networks of sensors and built-in DAA, is helping illuminate the path forward, unlock planning and investment for the future, with systems deployed in the real world and flights underway now.

Author: Kraettli Epperson
CEO, Vigilant Aerospace Systems Inc.

Published in the 2025 issue of UAS Magazine

CONTRIBUTION: The claims and statements made in this article belong exclusively to the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of UAS Magazine or its advertisers. All questions pertaining to this article should be directed to the author(s).

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