The Next Battlefield Advantage Is Being Built in Huntsville

A witness summed up a recent demonstration of locally manufactured drones designed as battlefield weapons and for surveillance.

“That is truly terrifying,’’ he whispered.

With three hovering drones providing a menacing presence in the sky, the controller moved one forward to drop a mock explosive payload onto a ground target.

A second drone was then moved away from the kill zone, released another device that dropped straight down, took a sharp 90-degree turn and quickly found its programmed objective.

Imagining this unfolding in war zones was, indeed, terrifying. But this scene played out in a field behind the new state-of-the-art, 90,000-square foot Performance Drone Works (PDW) robotics facility in the Research Park District.

The drones were the C100, which is PDW’s prototype “mothership.’’

“C100 is essentially replacing air support,’’ said PDW CEO and co-founder Ryan Gury. “From a backpack of a soldier, they can do ordinance resupply. Recently we were shooting precision missiles with the F-35.’’

He continued, saying the C100 “allows a single unit to deploy any variety of missions across the front line. And that distribution and scale is what we essentially believe that the U.S. military and militaries throughout the world are going to evolve into.’’

PDW held a ribbon-cutting ceremony Wednesday, followed by a tour of the facility, capped by a demonstration for the media and other attendees. The company is hiring and expects to have an $81 million annual impact in North Alabama.

Among those on hand were city and state representatives, along with company backers including Miami Dolphins owner, entrepreneur, and philanthropist Stephen Ross, as well as celebrity chef Robert Irvine.

“PDW is the most important drone company in the United States,” Gury said. “The reason why is that China has begun a campaign of economic sabotage to undermine the U.S. drone market. They had the foresight to realize that future warfare will involve these small drones.

“We need to ensure that on U.S. soil we have the best drone technology and we have a domestic supply chain. So now we are ready. We need plenty of (other drone producers).”

Another co-founder, Matt Higgins, said PDW feels “tremendous urgency here because we understand that we are playing catch up, not as a company, but as a country.’’

Drone production at the facility began July 1. The goal is to produce 60,000 drones per year. PDW already has contracts and is supporting different branches of the U.S. military and is also supplying drones for surveillance to the Secret Service and Customs and Border Patrol. 

Higgins was press secretary for then-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani during the terrorist attacks on 9/11. He was 26 years old at the time and the event gave him a passion to get involved.

“I was standing under the Twin Towers and just could not comprehend what I was seeing,’’ he said. 

Higgins said he spent 952 days at Ground Zero. 

“One question I would ask myself throughout that entire journey was, ‘How does this happen?’” he said. “How is America so caught off guard – the greatest country on earth with the greatest intelligence infrastructure.’’

Later, Higgins, Ross, and others teamed to form the Drone Racing League (DRL), a 3D-based competition. That was the genesis of RDW, which was born among 12 members of the DRL who met at Stovehouse on Governors Drive. An idea hatched for competition morphed into a company to benefit soldiers on the battlefield.

According to Higgins, after 9/11 he had a “lurking feeling’’ that America could be caught off guard again.

“Only the adversary this time was not Al Qaeda or terrorism,’’ he said. “It was China.’’

He added, “The reality is the next 9/11 will not arrive by plane, but by a swarm of drones. And we need to make sure we understand every aspect of this technology and build the greatest drone companies in the world right here (in the USA).’’

PDW launched in 2018 and relocated to Huntsville in 2020.

“Unfortunately,’’ Higgins said, “China and others have a head start, but we are throwing everything at it.’’

China took control of the drone market with cheaper products. Up to 90 percent of America’s police forces were using the communist-produced drones, since they were affordable when PDW began making plans to enter the industry.

PDW states the facility, named Drone Factory 01, features production at scale, materials management, robust quality engineering capabilities, and 99.9 percent pathogen reduction via Lit Thinking’s Visium Far-UVC devices, ensuring DF01 is the cleanest engineering facility in the world.

Higgins said that, while not intending to disrespect Silicon Valley—“except maybe slightly”—locating the plant in the Tennessee Valley was the right choice. “This is where we should be building and investing in our military, the future of the military, especially our drone industry. So we think, ‘It’s not why Huntsville, but why anywhere else?’”

PDW currently has 200 employees and is hiring “rapidly’’ with growth already exceeding expectations. The company hopes to eventually employ over 500. 

“PDW is an innovation engine for national defense and an economic catalyst for Huntsville,” Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle said. “This expansion brings high-quality jobs, strengthens our advanced manufacturing sector, and reinforces Huntsville’s position as a strategic hub for defense and aerospace. We’re proud to have PDW growing here and contributing to our community’s future.”

The mission at PDW, Gury said, is “creating attributable robotics to be spread to front line operators everywhere in the world.”