Join us this week on The Dawn of Autonomy with Lt. Col. Matt Limeberry, Commander of the RAPTR Task Force within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, and Tom Swoyer, Founder and President of GrandSKY, as we continue our “Defense Tech” theme, sponsored by Volatus Aerospace. With over 21 years of U.S. Army experience, Limeberry leads the Rapid Assessment of Prototype Technology Readiness (RAPTR) Task Force, the DoD’s engine for evaluating emerging technologies and accelerating their path to the warfighter through Technology Readiness Experimentation — better known as T-REX. Tom Swoyer has spent over a decade building GrandSKY into the nation’s first commercial UAS droneport co-located on an active U.S. Air Force Base — a 217-acre proving ground where the cutting edge of drone technology meets real-world operational infrastructure.
In this episode, Lt. Col. Limeberry pulls back the curtain on how T-REX works — a biannual, large-scale experimentation environment where industry, academia, and government converge to rapidly test and validate technologies ranging from counter-UAS kill chains and low-cost attritable systems to autonomous ground vehicles and FPV drone operations. Tom breaks down the GrandSKY ecosystem that makes it one of the most capable UAS testing environments in the country — from its 12,351-foot runway and 11,000+ square miles of BVLOS coverage to its growing role in counter-UAS and air defense.
Tune in to hear how Lt. Col. Limeberry and Tom Swoyer are closing the gap between commercial innovation and battlefield readiness — from two sides of the same mission.
