Lt. Col. Matt Limeberry & Tom Swoyer | Dawn of Autonomy | Episode 121

"Livestreamed: 2026-05-13T15:00:00.000Z Sponsor of the Month: Volatus Aerospace Website: https://volatusaerospace.com/ Episode Sponsor: GrandSky Website: https://grandskynd.com/ Episode Description: 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, 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. In this episode, Matt 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. He shares what it takes for a technology to go from prototype to fielded capability, why GrandSKY's infrastructure and airspace make it an ideal proving ground for this work, and how the Pentagon's push for drone dominance is reshaping the speed and culture of defense acquisition. Tune in to hear how Lt. Col. Limeberry and the RAPTR Task Force are closing the gap between commercial innovation and battlefield readiness — at the speed of relevance. "