en.Wedoany.com Reported - U.S. passive radio frequency sensing technology company Hidden Level held a ribbon-cutting ceremony on May 1, 2026, for its newly built anechoic chamber at its advanced manufacturing campus in East Syracuse, New York, officially putting it into operation. The $3 million laboratory investment aims to expand domestic production testing infrastructure, accelerating the development and delivery pace of RF sensing systems serving the airspace security of the U.S. military and allied nations. Company CEO Jeff Cole, Vice President of Operations Antoinett Dufort, and representatives of government, industry, and regional partners from across the nation attended the ceremony.
Hidden Level CEO Jeff Cole stated at the ceremony: "This lab changes the speed at which we develop, test, and deliver. We no longer rely on external test ranges or third-party facilities; we can iterate faster, validate more rigorously, and get proven systems into the hands of warfighters and operators sooner."
The newly opened anechoic chamber is a fully shielded RF environment that blocks external electromagnetic interference and absorbs internal signal reflections, providing a controlled, repeatable, and fully automated environment for system-level testing of passive RF sensors. Vice President of Operations Antoinett Dufort explained that previous outdoor testing methods faced multiple constraints, including RF interference from third-party drones, weather condition limitations, and long data processing cycles—field testing six sensors took an entire day, with subsequent data analysis requiring another week. The new laboratory compresses single-sensor testing time to four to five hours, with test results analyzed instantly. Dufort called it "an RF-quiet space where we can test our technology without any environmental interference, isolating the sensor under test itself."
Founded in 2018 and headquartered in Syracuse, New York, Hidden Level was co-founded by four former SRC employees, focusing on developing passive radar and RF sensing technologies for detecting and locating drones and other aerial threats. Unlike radar that actively emits signals, its passive antennas only receive RF communication signals between drones and operators, achieving "fully passive" detection, making it difficult for adversaries to locate the sensor positions. The company's sensor network has been deployed on light poles and building rooftops at sensitive sites such as airports and military installations. In 2025, it was designated a key supplier for the U.S. Department of Defense's "Golden Dome" program. As of March 2026, the company had 139 employees.
The laboratory is located on Kinne Road, directly opposite the manufacturing center Hidden Level put into operation in 2024, with only a street separating the two facilities. Newly produced units from the manufacturing center can be sent directly to the lab for calibration and testing, ready for deployment upon leaving the factory. The company's four operating facilities are concentrated in the Syracuse area, while the planned new headquarters at the Inner Harbor—a $45 million project—will further expand its manufacturing and technical job footprint in Central New York.
Hidden Level completed two intensive funding rounds in 2025, with a $35 million Series B and a $65 million Series C closing within six months, backed by investors including DFJ Growth and Booz Allen Ventures, with funds explicitly earmarked for expanding manufacturing capacity and strategic hiring. As the threat of "low, slow, small" drones proliferates in global conflicts, passive RF detection technology—which requires no active signal emission and is difficult to expose—is becoming a core technical direction for countering "dark drones" and swarm threats. By internalizing batch product testing capabilities and shortening the physical distance from production line to deployment, Hidden Level is further positioning itself within the U.S. military's accelerated counter-drone procurement cycle.
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