KEY WEST, Fla. — As unmanned surface vessels carved through the waters off Key West, Florida, and autonomous aerial systems scanned the horizon for illicit trafficking targets, a quieter but equally critical mission was unfolding behind the scenes at U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command/U.S. Fourth Fleet’s Fleet Experimentation (FLEX) 2026 exercise. Inside a network of command trailers operating advanced unmanned systems, researchers from the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center’s Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (ERDC-CERL) and industry partner LEMA were proving that the future of expeditionary operations depends not only on autonomous platforms and artificial intelligence, but also on resilient, unmanned energy systems capable of providing uninterrupted power in austere environments.
Throughout the entirety of the exercise, Dr. Jess Lyons, David Pogue and Craig White of ERDC-CERL’s Operational Energy Team, alongside the LEMA team, provided operational energy support to FLEX 2026 at Naval Air Station Key West. Their systems supplied power to all command trailers supporting unmanned surface vehicle (USV) and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) operations during the exercise.
The annual FLEX event, hosted by U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command/U.S. Fourth Fleet, serves as a proving ground for experimental and emerging technologies with the potential to enhance maritime operations. This year, the focus of the event was robotic and autonomous systems designed to enhance maritime domain awareness and counter transnational organized crime across the Western Hemisphere — particularly integrating artificial intelligence, unmanned systems and conventional naval platforms into a hybrid fleet capable of tracking and interdicting illicit maritime activity across vast operational areas.
Though unmanned systems captured the spotlight during demonstrations, the ability to sustain those systems operationally remained essential. For ERDC-CERL and LEMA, FLEX represented an opportunity to demonstrate how expeditionary energy technologies can improve operational endurance while reducing the logistical resupply burden associated with traditional diesel fueled power generation assets in contested or remote environments. Throughout the exercise, CERL’s partnership with LEMA stood out as an element that experienced no significant performance issues during operations — a distinction that drew attention from senior military leaders and operational stakeholders observing the event.
Gen. Francis L. Donovan, commander of U.S. Southern Command, praised ERDC-CERL’s approach to optimizing power generation to match operational loads, reducing the risk of generator wet-stacking and extending equipment life in expeditionary environments.
“I am excited that the Corps of Engineers was here at the event,” he said.
In response, Dr. Jess Lyons, ERDC-CERL project manager for the LEMA effort, said, "ERDC-CERL was excited to support the Fourth Fleet mission with industry-collaborative research and development in operational energy.”
The FLEX event underscored a growing recognition across the services that energy resilience is directly tied to operational effectiveness. In modern distributed operations, where autonomous systems, sensors and communications networks must operate continuously across dispersed locations, reliable and adaptable power systems have become mission-critical capabilities.
For CERL researchers, the success of FLEX reinforced a broader operational energy message: advanced technologies are only as effective as the infrastructure that sustains them. By tailoring power generation to operational demands, expeditionary energy systems can reduce logistical demands, improve endurance, decrease maintenance burdens and enable forces to operate longer and farther in austere environments.
The event also highlighted the broader value of partnerships across government, industry and operational commands. FLEX 2026 brought together organizations from across the Department of War, including naval operational units, joint interagency partners, research laboratories, as well as academia and private industry — all focused on accelerating the transition of emerging technologies into operational use. That collaborative approach mirrors ERDC-CERL’s own operational energy mission, which relies heavily on partnerships with industry like LEMA to rapidly prototype, test and ruggedize technologies that support the future force.
“The collaboration with U.S. Army Corps of Engineers during the Navy’s FLEX 2026 exercise was exceptional,” said Randy Sullwold, LEMA’s Head of Defense. “The engagement highlighted a strong alignment between LEMA’s mission and the Army’s growing need for resilient, unmanned infrastructure capable of supporting operations in austere environments. Events like FLEX are critical for accelerating the transition of innovative technologies into real-world operational capability.”
As FLEX 2026 concluded in Key West, the exercise demonstrated more than the promise of unmanned systems and artificial intelligence. It showed how resilient expeditionary energy solutions enable those technologies to function reliably in real-world operational environments. For ERDC-CERL and its partners, the message was clear: operational endurance begins with operational energy.