The Norton Test Range in San Bernardino CA: A Partnership Built on Experience

The UAS Center at SBD and Influential Drones share a practical goal: helping uncrewed aircraft, robotics, and sensing technologies move from ideas to safe, tested, and useful tools.

The UAS Center at SBD is headquartered at San Bernardino International Airport. It supports the Norton Test Range, which begins at the airport and extends far beyond the surrounding area into San Bernardino County, the largest county in the United States by area. This gives companies, agencies, and developers access to a broad aviation and operating environment for uncrewed aircraft, robotic systems, sensors, and related technologies.

The UAS Center at SBD is supported through an enterprise fund managed by an economic development agency, giving its work a purpose beyond testing alone. The goal is also to help attract companies to the Southern California region to help build up the workforce.

The Norton Test Range is not only a place to fly. It is a place to learn how systems perform across real operating conditions, what needs improvement, and what must be validated before use in real missions.

Influential Drones supports that purpose through field experience, public safety knowledge, training, consulting, flight operations, systems integration, and practical program support. That experience does not remove testing risk, rather helps teams recognize risk earlier, respond better, and make informed decisions that last.

A strong east coast and west coast connection

Influential Drones is rooted in New Jersey, while the UAS Center at SBD is advancing important work in Southern California. That east coast and west coast connection creates a wider network for the industry.

Together, the relationship connects public safety, aviation, airport operations, testing, standards, training, software, sensing, and mobile robotics experience across the country. It gives customers and partners access to more than one viewpoint and a broader base of knowledge.

Influential Drones brings experience from public safety agencies, government customers, schools, and commercial operators, while the UAS Center at SBD provides the range environment where that experience can be put to work.

Safe testing means safe learning

Testing is not always about proving success. In many cases, the most valuable result is learning what did not work and why.

In testing, failure can be acceptable when it is planned for, controlled, documented, and validated safely. That is one of the most important roles of an aviation focused test range. It gives teams a place to discover limits while protecting people, property, airspace, and future missions.

A test that does not go as expected can reveal a software issue, weak command link, sensor limitation, payload problem, training gap, or design choice that needs to change. Those lessons are valuable when they are captured honestly and used to improve the system.

The Norton Test Range supports that process in a controlled aviation environment before systems are placed into real operational use.

A range manager who understands the whole system

Dave Krause serves as the Norton Test Range Manager and Technical Advisor. His role is important because modern drones are not simple flying machines. They are computer systems that move through the air.

Drones depend on software for flight control, mission planning, video, mapping, data storage, remote operations, sensors, and autonomy. When software is not designed, tested, or understood correctly, the aircraft, the data, or the mission can fail.

Dave’s background as a software architect helps him evaluate the full aviation and robotics system, not just the flight itself. His work also helps connect the Norton Test Range to important standards and evaluation relationships, including efforts involving the University of Alaska and NIST aligned validation. Those connections strengthen the range by tying local aviation and robotics activity to broader national conversations around validation, performance, and responsible deployment.

He also helps teams ask stronger questions before, during, and after testing.

• What is the mission, and what does the aircraft or robotic system need to prove?
• Is the test plan safe, clear, and realistic for the airspace, airport environment, and operating area?
• How will the system respond if conditions change during flight or movement?
• Will the aircraft, sensors, payloads, software, command link, and operators work together as intended?
• Can the development team coordinate efficiently without creating conflicts between systems, workflows, or responsibilities?
• What data must be collected to support the next decision?
• What happens if something does not perform as expected?
• Does the test move the system closer to safe aviation, airport, or field use?

These questions keep the focus where it belongs: on safety, mission purpose, system performance, and whether the technology is ready to support real operations.

Why hardware and software knowledge is needed

That systems view is especially important when hardware and software meet in flight.

Aircraft, sensors, payloads, batteries, software, operators, and procedures all have lifecycles. Hardware must be selected, integrated, inspected, maintained, and operated within its limits. Software must be configured, updated, tested, documented, and understood as systems change over time.

When those lifecycles are not managed together, problems can appear during testing or later in the field. An mobile robotic system may have strong hardware but poor software setup. A payload or sensor may fit on an aircraft but still fail to support the mission, the data need, or the operating environment. A system may perform well in one test but struggle after an update, configuration change, or operational shift.

Dave’s experience helps teams find these issues earlier. It does not mean every test will go perfectly. It means teams are better prepared to understand what happened, adjust safely, and build stronger systems before they reach customers, airports, or field users.

From test range to completion center

The larger vision for SBD is to also support completion, helping teams move from testing toward safer and more usable systems.

Many teams can build something that works once in a controlled moment. Fewer can build something that works safely and consistently in real aviation, airport, or field operations. Moving from prototype to finished system often requires better documentation, training, safety planning, data workflows, mission design, integration support, and operational review.

This is where the Influential Drones team adds value.

Krause helps guide range activity and development conversations through his background in aviation, software architecture, and real-world operations. The broader Influential Drones team is also available to support customers with training, consulting, systems integration, documentation, operational planning, and practical next steps after testing.

Testing should not be the finish line. Testing should help teams learn, improve, complete their systems, and prepare for responsible use in the field.

A relationship built for the future

The Norton Test Range gives the industry a place to turn lessons into better systems. Influential Drones supports that work with practical field experience, strong relationships, and a team that understands how to move uncrewed aircraft, robotics, and sensing technologies from concept toward real world value. That is the strength of the partnership: not only supporting tests, but helping better aviation, robotics, and sensing systems reach the people, airports, and missions they are built to serve.

Learn more about the Norton Test Range.