Washington — The U.S. Army has recognized Michigan’s Camp Grayling as a top military test range and will open the site to private partnerships for the development of drone technologies, Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll announced Friday.
The move comes after the site at northern Michigan’s National All-Domain Warfighting Center (NADWC) won the designation by the Pentagon in February to become a national range for drone testing following a bipartisan push from the state’s congressional delegation.
The Army, as part of the Friday announcement, is launching a website meant to give private businesses an easier way to communicate with military officials and speed up research into emerging defense technologies, such as drones.
“A company with a good idea shouldn’t need a team of lawyers and a program of record just to prove their equipment works,” Driscoll, who visited Camp Grayling on Friday, said in a statement.
“So we fixed that. One front door — testrange.army.mil — a real person to walk you in, and on the other side, everything the modern battlefield demands: contested airspace, degraded signals and the space to test at real scale,” he added.
The initiative will give companies access to specialized environments for testing new systems and equipment. Camp Grayling, home to the largest National Guard training center in the United States, was chosen in part for its easy access to the vast open waters of the Great Lakes.
The Michigan site is one of five chosen for the new initiative. Other sites include the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, the West Cibola Range at Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona and the African Multidomain Training and Experimentation Center in Morocco.
Several members of Michigan’s congressional delegation penned a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in July 2025 touting the NADWC as a top option to become one of the country’s new unmanned aerial system test sites after the Pentagon launched an initiative aimed at boosting drone tech and competing with China.
Republican U.S. Rep. Jack Bergman of Watersmeet, whose congressional district includes Camp Grayling, signed on to that letter. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Friday announcement.
Democratic U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Holly was the top Democrat on that letter.
Slotkin has advocated for the Great Lakes State becoming more involved in defense technology and manufacturing. Some officials in southeast Michigan have made similar pushes, and automakers Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co. have placed renewed emphasis on defense in recent months.
gschwab@detroitnews.com
@GrantSchwab
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Camp Grayling named as top test range, opened to new partnerships
Reporting by Grant Schwab, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Grant Schwab, The Detroit News | USA TODAY Network
