UND Teams with NASA for Test Flight - Valley News Live - KVLY/KXJB - Fargo/Grand Forks

  Some high tech testing over the skies of the northern valley today, could one day change the entire future of aviation.

   UND is currently working with NASA and some other companies on some cutting edge technology, that could one day make the flight of unmanned aircraft in U.S. skies, an everyday occurrence.

Frank Jones, NASA: "We're all moving to… and the future looks like robotic aircraft and being able to move cargo with unmanned aircraft. Those are all types of things down the way that we can be using these capabilities."

Bruce Smith, UND Aerospace: "This is a very exciting day for us because we have an opportunity to show off the capabilities of the Odegard School at UND to the rest of the world."

    The NASA plane was flown from the ground, just like a UAV. A pilot was on board just In case anything went wrong.

  Software developed in part by UND students and researchers was actually controlling the plane     .

 Andy Lacher, Mitre Corp.: "This is the unmanned aircraft. The aircraft that is acting as an unmanned aircraft."

  What's being tested is software aboard the plane that will automatically turn it away from any other planes in the sky.

Andy Lacher: "This is the intruder aircraft that was heading for a head-on encounter."

  A UND plane acted as the intruder.  On radar, you can see the plane with the new software, automatically veer away from the UND plane.

Mark Askelson, UND Atmospheric Science: "Once we can fly safely in the national airspace system the industry is really going to take off."

  And UND is now poised to become a major player in what's expected to become a multi-billion dollar industry.