Guardian Skies Summit

DETECT - IDENTIFY - TRACK - DEFEAT

Live cUAS Mitigation Demonstration and Exercise

September 23rd, 2026: Camp Grayling 

$250–750 million in federal counter-UAS funding is expected to be released to SLTT agencies this fall through the DHS CUAS grant programs. All states and territories will have access, with a large share dedicated to mitigation systems.  Most agencies making these purchases have never seen the technology operate in a real environment, yet are making rapid, high-dollar decisions with limited data.

Guardian Skies is a demonstration event at Camp Grayling Joint Maneuver Training Center, co-located with the National All-Domain Warfighting Center. This is the nation’s largest National Guard training installation and a federally designated drone test site.

• Counter-UAS vendors will be provided dedicated demonstration windows to operate their systems against live drone threats in a controlled, real-world environment. Federal airspace and spectrum approvals to conduct mitigation exercises included RF disruption, kinetics, and GPS denial

• Live red-air threat simulations will include multiple drone profiles and coordinated multi-threat scenarios. This provides vendors with a realistic target set and gives stakeholders a true performance benchmark.

Attendees will be vetted and must fall into one of the following categories. Event staff reserves the right to approve and deny all attendees:

• State, Local, and Tribal Law Enforcement

• Corrections, Prisons, etc

• National Guard

• Federal Partners

• Commercial Security, including Critical Infrastructure, Venue Security, etc.

Schedule:

September 22nd: Vendor Setup and Testing

September 23rd: Guardian Skies Summit

September 24th: Contingency Weather Date

The event will be held at the Michigan Army National Guard’s Camp Grayling. Power will be provided on site. Each vendor will be given space under an outdoor tent and a location to deploy kit. Grayling, Michigan, has several hotel options. The closest international airport is in Traverse City, Michigan. Additional airport options include Pellston, Lansing, Grand Rapids or Detroit (Listed in order of distance from venue). 

Attendee Registration: Attendees, click here to register.

After approval, attendees will be sent the event logistics.

Looking for the vendor information packet? Email info@midroneassoc.com. Ready to register as a vendor? Vendors, click here to register.