The Dayton region landed a big victory last Wednesday, as the state is awarding $3 million to create the Center for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Exploitation in the region.

The Ohio Third Frontier program is allocating the funds to the University of Dayton’s IDCAST, which submitted the proposal for the UAV center. The 6,000-square-foot UAV center will be located in the 25,000-square-foot Air Force Center for Rapid Product Development, at 104 Janney Street in Dayton. The project advances unmanned aerial vehicle technology by supporting research for national security and emergency response applications.

The project is a collaboration among a handful of local organizations including the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, BAE Systems and UltraCell Corp. A coalition of organizations and companies have formed an alliance in the past two years centered around forging the region as a hub of UAV research and manufacturing. UAVs are big business — U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said he wants a 62 percent increase in capability over the current level by 2011. UAV sales are expected to nearly double to $10 billion by 2012 and grow another $5 billion by 2016, according to past project proposals. In addition to the UAV center, the state awarded $21 million in funding through the Wright Projects Program. The programs support near-term commercialization projects requiring major capital acquisitions and improvements at Ohio colleges and universities and nonprofit research institutions. (Source: Dayton Business Journal, Jacob Dirr)