Vigilant flight-tests two FlightHorizon PILOT DAA versions

Vigilant Aerospace is flight-testing two versions of FlightHorizon PILOT, its detect-and-avoid system carried on the aircraft: a light civilian unit with a transponder receiver and a heavier one with radar. The tests support BVLOS operations for small and large UAS, as FAA draft rules are expected to call for some form of detect-and-avoid.

By SamPublished June 17, 2026Updated October 22, 20262 min read

The flights are part of a $1M development project with OAIRE at Oklahoma State University, backed by state funding from OCAST. On the civilian unit, one compact single-board computer handles traffic detection, tracking and correlation, plus avoidance maths that follows industry standards, so even very small aircraft can carry it. The heavier variant adds radar to catch aircraft without transponders.

Both configurations have flown. Engineers have tuned and filtered the radar, tried a growing set of certified and uncertified computers, and run the software on multirotor and fixed-wing drones. The system computes trajectories and sends alerts and avoidance commands to the autopilot, with a second feed to a moving-map ground display for supervising pilots. Avoidance logic uses the FAA-supplied ACAS-X algorithms.

The latest flights used an NDAA-compliant Group I hexacopter, mostly at OSU’s Uncrewed Aircraft Flight Station. Testing next moves to a much larger civilian Group II fixed-wing aircraft that, the company says, carries more than 60 pounds of payload for up to 300 miles on a gasoline engine. CEO Kraettli Epperson says the aim is to stay in front of the requirements now taking shape for drone integration into national airspace.

Why it matters

Under current FAA rules, small UAS stay within the pilot’s visual line of sight unless a waiver applies, and larger aircraft need exemptions. Under the FAA’s draft rules, aircraft weighing as much as 1,320 pounds could operate at low level as a matter of routine without the pilot seeing them, and Vigilant expects some detect-and-avoid requirement to follow. Vigilant presents the product as a way toward meeting Part 108.

The product has a long test record. The first tests, funded by an FAA research contract with Alaska’s ACUASI, covered miles of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline route under a BVLOS waiver. A later SBIR Phase II effort for the Air Force Research Laboratory matured a version for a Group V military UAS. Two NASA patents, held under licence, underpin the system; the Oklahoma award now pays for the civilian line.

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