ROBBRIEF
Ondas Sentinel's new Springfield, Ohio site consolidates training, simulation, and live flight for its long endurance surveillance drone, minutes from the Air Force Research Laboratory that developed it.
Twenty minutes down Interstate 70 from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ondas has opened a Springfield, Ohio campus that consolidates the full operator pipeline for its long-endurance military drones: ground school, simulation, mission planning, testing, demonstrations, and live flight on one site.
The facility sits inside the National Advanced Air Mobility Center of Excellence (NAAMCE), minutes from the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, and the Ohio Air National Guard's 178th Wing. Ondas Sentinel, the company's autonomous defense division, calls the configuration a vertically integrated training-to-flight loop.
The two platforms moving through are ULTRA, a long-endurance drone originally developed through an AFRL rapid-development program, and Stratollite, a high-altitude stratospheric platform. The campus is Ondas Sentinel's first Midwest hub since the company closed its July acquisition of DZYNE Technologies, folding the defense-drone maker into the same division.
Ondas Sentinel CTO Matt McCue described the campus at the ribbon-cutting as offering "something few others can match": ground school, simulation, mission planning, and live flight in one place. Regional backers include JobsOhio, Clark County, and the Dayton Development Coalition, with area universities expected to feed the workforce.
Ondas has not announced new military contracts tied to the site. The campus sits minutes from AFRL, the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center next door, and the Ohio Air National Guard's 178th Wing.