The Warsaw-based hub will pool military research institutes, the IDEAS NCBR think-tank and state arms group PGZ, with the Air Force Institute of Technology as leader. Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz said the venture would fuse “discoveries with practice and production”, turning years-long procurement cycles into “months”.
“OSA’s job is to test everything our scientists and start-ups invent, hand it to the army and, if it meets our needs, launch serial manufacture,” he told a signing ceremony, calling the project “a drone highway”.
First in line is PLargonia, a one-way attack drone dubbed the “Polish Shahed”, due for a live demonstration at the Ustka range. April trials will also examine 13 home-grown counter-drone systems for the planned eastern “Shield” air-defense belt.
Deputy defense minister Cezary Tomczyk said Warsaw had earmarked PLN 25 billion (EUR 5.8 billion) this year for unmanned and anti-drone programs—up from 100 million in 2023—and 15 billion of that will fund SAN, an anti-drone barrier on the frontier with Belarus and Russia. “This really is a drone motorway,” he said.
Under the agreement, OSA will run a new test range near Zielonka and coordinate with industry to meet NATO’s SAFE defense-financing scheme, which Poland hopes will underwrite large orders. The locally-built KUNA unmanned ground vehicle has already made the U.S. Pentagon’s “green list”, Tomczyk noted, meaning commanders can buy it without extra trials.
Colonel Mariusz Zieja, appointed to head OSA, said the center would create “the right ecosystem for rapid adoption of Polish innovations”, ensuring soldiers help refine prototypes and that intellectual property—and jobs—stay at home.
“Synergy between industry, science and the army is the future not only of the armed forces but of the whole Polish state,” Zieja added.
(jh)
Source: PAP