March 12, 2020 - In partnership with UND, Grand Forks, N.D., startup company Airtonomy has been awarded North Dakota’s first Microsoft AI for Earth grant and a Research ND grant to develop monitoring protocols of bird and bat mortalities at wind energy sites through the use of small unmanned aircraft systems (UAS).
The project builds upon a previous Research ND effort that produced a recently awarded Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) autonomous multi-drone inspection (AMDI) operational waiver, submitted under Xcel Energy’s UAS Integration Pilot Program designation.