U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground has been designated the primary interagency counter-sUAS test and training range following the establishment of Joint Interagency Task Force 401 last August.
The designation places responsibility for testing Class I and II small UAS primarily at Yuma, while larger Class III through V systems will continue to be tested mainly at White Sands Missile Range.
Yuma Proving Ground, which has conducted developmental drone testing for decades, brings extensive institutional experience to the role. As small UAS proliferate across global battlefields, the demand for effective counter-sUAS systems has increased, driving the need for more centralized and accelerated testing.
Centralizing small UAS testing
“We’ve been working this mission since the Army Rapid-Equipping Force came here for Desert Chance in 2015 where we needed to see what industry had to offer to counter drones,” said Ross Gwynn, YPG Technical Director. “We have different instrumentation and test methodologies that we have developed in-house along with analytical processes to show how these systems are performing. This is a new designation to speed up this process and focus these test efforts in a single location to pull all of these stakeholders together across different services.”
James Amato, Executive Technical Director for the Army Test and Evaluation Command, indicated that demand is expected to remain high across the test enterprise:
“I expect the workload to be so great that we’ll continue to use multiple test centers to be able to accomplish that mission at the speed and scale with which the Department of War is trying to move,” Amato said.
Infrastructure, environment and industry access
YPG’s geographic footprint includes nearly 2,000 square miles of restricted airspace, clear weather conditions and a dry climate, factors that make it attractive for aviation and counter-UAS testing. Officials anticipate increased industry participation as companies seek to validate systems in controlled but operationally relevant environments.
“We anticipate a pretty significant increase in workload,” said Gwynn. “As industry is asked to demonstrate capabilities that will solve gaps for the military, we’re going to see industry partners and contactors that want to come out and get opportunities to test their systems in restricted airspace.”
Omar Silva, YPG Chief of Staff, emphasized the installation’s ability to support accelerated development timelines:
“The subject matter experts and culture that YPG has will make sure that we can enable them to go faster in whatever they need to get after this counter-UAS fight,” Silva said. “We always make things happen, but there is an opportunity here to make sure that we can leverage this designation to get some infrastructure to provide data faster.”
Over the past decade, YPG has hosted semi-annual industry demonstrations of counter-UAS technologies, evaluating systems ranging from kinetic interceptors to electronic warfare solutions and hybrid approaches. Its experience in replicating complex electromagnetic environments, a capability developed during two decades of counter-IED testing, is viewed as particularly relevant for counter-drone missions.
“Counter-UAS has a lot to do with electronic warfare, and the counter-IED mission was at YPG for two decades during the War on Terror,” said Col. John Nelson, YPG Commander. “That really lent our range to presenting contested environments for the counter-UAS mission.”
Nelson added, “Counter-UAS efforts are so important now due to the proliferation of drones in the battle space. In the Department of War, the Army is the lead agency for counter-UAS development and in the Army test community YPG is the center of excellence for testing C-sUAS. We’re turning over solutions for the warfighter every day.”
The new designation has also drawn attention from lawmakers. U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Airland, visited the installation in January.
“The committee and certainly the Department of War has taken base security especially to heart and has tried to incentivize as much private sector innovation as possible,” Cramer said. “When I learned that Yuma Proving Ground was the tip of the spear on a lot of that testing, that is what prompted me to come here.”
“What I have learned is very encouraging to me,” he added. “Our Army facilitates real innovation at the speed of our adversaries, and we’re quite advanced at it.”
As counter-UAS requirements expand, Yuma Proving Ground’s formal role as the central hub for small system testing is expected to shape how rapidly new technologies move from industry demonstration to operational fielding.
Col. John Nelson, YPG Commander, will offer further insight into the trialing and testing of airborne launched loitering munitions at the upcoming Loitering Munitions USA Conference which will convene in Arlington in May.
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Post Image Credit: U.S. Army
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