SEPTEMBER 3, 2026 – Two Soldiers from the Pennsylvania National Guard’s Unmanned Aircraft System Training and Innovation Facility participated in U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Army Research Laboratory’s Robotics and Autonomy Showcase Aug. 27, demonstrating the latest version of their Project Recovery Exploitation Drone, or Project R.E.D.
Chief Warrant Officer 2 Nathan Shea and Sgt. 1st Class Brent Wehr traveled to the Army Research Laboratory’s, or ARL, Robotics Research Collaboration Campus at Grace’s Quarter, Maryland, for the event, which showcased several cutting-edge projects.
The system uses a custom-designed and built small Unmanned Aircraft System with a robotic arm to enable service members to safely recover downed adversary or friendly drones for intelligence exploitation or repair.
Project R.E.D. won the innovation category at the U.S. Army’s first Best Drone Warfighter Competition in February. Since winning the competition, the Unmanned Aircraft System Training and Innovation Facility has collaborated with the ARL to improve the system.
During the showcase, Shea, Wehr and their ARL scientist partners presented the improved drone to military and civilian government leaders, elected officials and representatives from academia and industry.
“I’m hopeful that through the military leaders, civilian government agencies, elected officials, academia and industry partners present, we will see the demand signal to hand this project off for its next phase of development,” said Shea, the Unmanned Aircraft System Training and Innovation Facility’s officer in charge. “I believe the team did an outstanding job at shaping the problem set we developed this project to tackle.”
He added that he thinks they “covered the challenges it faces in its current configuration” and have outlined how to overcome them.
Collaboration with the ARL improved autonomous flight characteristics, increased on-board AI-enabled video capture frame rate, lightened and strengthened the landing legs and simplified electrical wiring.
Shea said just being able to attend the event was a fantastic experience for him and Wehr.
“We got to meet a bunch of ARL teams from their Information, Autonomy and Teaming Science Division that have been developing a variety of projects and solutions to some core problems sets within the Army,” Shea said. “I’d say it helped us have a greater understanding of how these engineers look at and scope large problem sets that are presented to them from the Army.”
Additionally, Shea said he and Wehr made numerous new connections to assist in the development of projects and research at the Unmanned Aircraft System Training and Innovation Facility.
By Brad Rhen
Pennsylvania National Guard