Hoeven: UND to Assess Technology for Department of War Counter-Drone Task Force

GRAND FORKS, N.D. – Senator John Hoeven today marked the start of a formal partnership between the University of North Dakota (UND) and the U.S. Department of War’s (DoW) Joint Inter Agency Task Force (JIATF) 401. With support from the Northern Plains UAS Test Site, UND will assess counter-drone technology on behalf of JIATF 401, the agency responsible for coordinating counter-drone defense development across the entire DoW. Specifically, under the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that was signed today: JIATF 401 has entered into a first of its kind agreement with UND, giving the university a central role in its counter-drone efforts. The task force will share objectives and technical standards with UND, helping to guide the university’s research and testing. UND will serve as the task force’s clearinghouse, identifying promising counter-UAS technologies that warrant further evaluation and development, while sorting out technologies that fall short of the DoW’s needs. Hoeven has been working with UND and JIATF 401, including Task Force Director Brig. Gen. Matthew Ross, to advance the agreement. To this end, the senator has met repeatedly with BG Ross, both in North Dakota and Washington, D.C., to move this initiative forward: Hoeven convened a meeting in his office in November 2025 with senior DoW officials, including BG Ross, where the senator made the case for leveraging North Dakota’s UAS ecosystem to meet warfighter needs. This meeting resulted in the Technology Readiness Experimentation (T-REX) event that was held at Camp Grafton earlier this year. T-REX was a two-week event that Hoeven worked to organize with JIATF 401 and the North Dakota National Guard, which allowed DoW officials to evaluate promising counter-drone technologies. In July, Hoeven followed up on these efforts during a meeting with BG Ross with the goal of formalizing the relationship between UND and JIATF 401. These meetings helped make clear the support that UND could provide to JIATF 401’s counter-drone work and led to the MOU being finalized today. “Small drones have changed warfare, a fact we’ve seen clearly in Ukraine, the Middle East and even over our own military bases. JIATF 401 was founded specifically to address this new threat and leads the effort to develop and deploy counter-drone technology across the entire Department of War. Now, UND will serve as the clearinghouse for this task force, leveraging the expertise of its researchers and the capabilities of the Northern Plains UAS Test Site to assess technologies that can be used to detect, protect against and neutralize threats from unmanned aircraft,” said Hoeven. “I appreciate General Ross for recognizing the potential of this partnership and for working with me to make it a reality. Between Project ATLAS, which we announced yesterday, and the MOU signed today, it is clear to anyone who wants to develop drone and counter-drone technology, North Dakota is the place to be.” -###-