As some of the world’s largest inland seas, the lakes provide the United States with an opportunity similar to that found at Area 51.
For two weeks in July, over 40 companies, ranging from small start-ups to major defense “primes,” gathered in Alpena, Mich., on the banks of Lake Huron. They had come to conduct an exercise designed to test combinations of systems that operate in the electromagnetic spectrum. The effort was sponsored by the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, with the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Crane, Ind., taking the on-scene lead on the exercise’s execution. Additionally, commercial participants got to interact with representatives of the Army’s C5ISR Center, the Air Force Test Center, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Michigan National Guard.
