A drone flies over the 1073rd Support Maintenance Company’s mission during Exercise Northern Strike 24-2 near the Camp Grayling Maneuver and Training Equipment Site (MATES) in Crawford County, Michigan, Aug. 8, 2024. (Connor Taggart/U.S. Air Force)
(Tribune News Service) — A Northern Michigan defense training complex based out of Camp Grayling has been chosen by the federal government to test and train drones.
The announcement made this week by the Pentagon comes after months of requests to select the site by some state and federal lawmakers.
Now, Michigan’s National All-Domain Warfighting Center (NADWC) will test advanced uncrewed aerial systems, more commonly known as drones.
The decision by the Department of Defense was celebrated by U.S. Sens. Elissa Slotkin, D-Holly, and Gary Peters, D-Bloomfield Township, along with U.S. Rep. Jack Bergman, R-Watersmeet, who represents the district where NADWC is located.
Slotkin said the announcement further establishes Michigan as the nation’s “defense innovation hub,” highlighting NADWC’s “permissive drone testing policies” and proximity to tech industry leaders in Michigan, including large-scale manufacturing centers and national transportation hubs.
“From the assembly line to advanced manufacturing, our state has always stepped up,” Slotkin said. “Today, as drones reshape our national security, Michigan’s selection as a national drone testing site further solidifies our state as the center of this transformation. Michigan is the proof that cutting-edge defense technology can be designed, tested, and built with American supply chains, right here at home.”
NADWC encompasses nearly 148,000 acres of training space at the Camp Grayling Maneuver Training Center, the country’s largest National Guard training facility, along with 17,000 square miles of special use military airspace at the Alpena Combat Readiness Training Center.
It is the largest joint training range east of the Mississippi River.
In a 2025 letter to the federal government advocating for the site, Slotkin and other members of Michigan’s Congressional delegation said NADWC already has a track record of successful drone testing.
It serves as a Pentagon and defense contractor drone testing site as part of the semi-annual Northern Strike exercise hosted by the Michigan National Guard.
An online webpage describes NADWC as offering training for entities across the DOD to “prepare for the battlefield of the future,” highlighting year-round land, air, maritime, cyber and space training exercises.
The site also has a dedicated 60-mile-long and 6-mile-wide drone corridor, and each of Michigan’s National Guard bases allow companies to rent space on site. Lawmakers said that provides open access to industry partners to use military training ranges for commercial drone testing.
They highlighted the center’s large size, airspace and all-weather training environment as allowing drones to be tested year-round.
Peters, a member of the Senate’s Armed Services Committee, said drones play an “integral role in modern-day warfare,” and the NADWC is “an ideal training ground to test these technologies and help ensure we maintain our air superiority around the world.”
In June 2025, President Donald Trump issued an executive order calling on the federal government to “unleash American drone dominance.”
A month later, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said he would ramp up the Department of Defense’s drone production, also restricting policies that “hindered production and limited access” to drones.
“We’ll train as we expect to fight,” Hegseth’s letter said.
State Rep. John Roth, R-Interlochen, said Hegseth and the Army and National Guard Bureau selected Michigan’s site for consistently demonstrating its “critical role in supporting the nation’s UAS and counter-UAS initiatives.”
Both Roth and federal lawmakers previously sent letters to the federal government requesting the NADWC be chosen. In July of last year, a bipartisan delegation that included Slotkin, Peters, Bergman and eight more U.S. House members wrote Hegseth, requesting he designate NADWC as one of the three new drone test sites he made plans to establish.
In addition to the site’s benefits, they highlighted how on July 17, Michigan became the “first state to act” on Trump’s drone executive orders, as Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed an executive directive establishing an Advanced Air Mobility Initiative, meant to scale Michigan’s drone capabilities.
The state also announced $4.1 million in funding for four projects on air mobility research and infrastructure. In a November 2025 letter, Roth and a bipartisan group of state lawmakers also wrote that the state is “uniquely positioned to advance the Pentagon’s drone capabilities and revitalize America’s drone infrastructure.”
The announcement comes as the state House considers bills that would tighten up regulations for private drone operators, including prohibiting flights over some state-owned property and “critical infrastructure,” like power plants and law enforcement buildings.
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