U.S. Army 173rd Airborne Tests FPV Drones and AI Technologies Against Russian Electronic Warfare in Europe.

The U.S. Army’s 173rd Airborne Brigade is testing FPV drones, ISR unmanned aircraft, ground robots, and AI-enabled tools in Germany during Saber Junction 26 as it prepares for a European battlefield increasingly shaped by Russian electronic warfare and mass drone use. The trials focus on whether lightly equipped paratroopers can maintain reconnaissance, targeting speed, and battlefield awareness when communications and conventional drone links are disrupted.

The systems are being evaluated for their ability to keep small units effective under jamming, persistent surveillance, and rapid enemy targeting. For airborne forces, that could mean greater survivability and faster decision-making against an adversary combining drones, electronic warfare, artillery, and long-range fires.

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U.S. Soldiers from the Joint Multinational Readiness Center’s 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment operate an AUTEL ADM4 drone during Saber Junction 26 at Hohenfels Training Area, Germany, on August 26, 2026. The exercise is testing how U.S. and NATO forces employ unmanned aerial systems, electronic warfare, and contested communications to improve survivability, reconnaissance, and targeting in large-scale combat conditions. (Picture source: U.S. Department of War/Defense)

U.S. Army Southern European Task Force, Africa detailed the effort on August 26, 2026, as more than 2,300 paratroopers from the 173rd Airborne Brigade trained at the Joint Multinational Readiness Center in Hohenfels with more than 2,100 Allied and partner troops. Saber Junction 26 incorporates electronic warfare, unmanned aerial systems, dispersed maneuver, and contested communications, making the rotation particularly relevant to NATO preparations for large-scale combat in Europe.

The operational problem is already visible in Ukraine. Russian forces increasingly combine unmanned reconnaissance, electronic warfare, artillery, glide bombs, and FPV drones to identify and attack Ukrainian electronic warfare positions, radar sites, command posts, artillery units, drone operators, and fortified positions. This integration creates a compressed targeting cycle in which detection by an unmanned aircraft can rapidly lead to a strike, leaving exposed formations little time to relocate or conceal themselves.

That threat is particularly serious for an airborne brigade. The 173rd can deploy faster than heavier U.S. Army formations, but paratroopers initially operate without the protection and concentrated firepower provided by main battle tanks and infantry fighting vehicles. Persistent drones could expose landing zones, assembly areas, logistics activity, mortar positions, command posts, and vehicle movements at the same time electronic warfare interferes with the communications needed to reorganize dispersed troops.

The brigade is responding through its Bayonet Innovation Team, an internal cell composed of paratroopers, engineers, warrant officers, and technical specialists. According to the August 26, 2026, U.S. Army release, the team designs, builds, and fields low-cost FPV drones, ISR unmanned aerial vehicles, ground robots, and AI-enabled tools while maintaining the ability to produce drones internally. The significance is not simply the equipment itself, but the ability to introduce or modify systems in response to tactical requirements without depending entirely on long conventional acquisition cycles.

FPV drones could be especially useful to airborne infantry because they provide small units with relatively inexpensive reconnaissance and, when configured for attack, precision engagement options. Soldiers can use them to inspect terrain, observe defensive positions, identify routes, or locate enemy activity without exposing reconnaissance teams, while strike-capable variants can potentially attack vehicles, firing positions, or other tactical targets after detection.

Their weakness is electronic warfare. Conventional FPV drones normally depend on radio-frequency control and video links that can be jammed, disrupted, or potentially detected. Russia and Ukraine have responded by changing frequencies, antennas, software, navigation methods, and control architectures as electronic warfare systems evolve, turning drone operations into a continuous contest between operators and counter-UAS teams.

Fiber-optic FPV drones have become one of the most significant responses to that jamming problem in the Russia-Ukraine war. Instead of relying on a radio control signal, the unmanned aircraft stays connected to its operator via a thin fiber-optic cable carrying commands and video, making the control link resistant to conventional radio-frequency jamming and allowing operation where line-of-sight radio links may fail. Both Russian and Ukrainian forces increasingly use the approach, despite limitations including cable weight, entanglement, and reduced maneuver flexibility.

The August 26 SETAF-AF release gives no indication that the U.S. Army 173rd Airborne Brigade is currently fielding fiber-optic FPV drones, but their growing battlefield use illustrates the anti-jamming challenge the brigade must prepare to address. The lesson for U.S. Army drone development is that increasing range or payload alone is insufficient if an unmanned aircraft becomes unusable as soon as it enters a heavily contested electromagnetic environment.

Artificial intelligence could provide another route toward greater resilience. Ukraine has been developing AI-assisted navigation and automatic target-recognition technologies that allow unmanned aircraft to rely more heavily on onboard processing when satellite navigation or communications are degraded. CSIS has documented Ukrainian systems using machine vision, preloaded terrain data, autonomous navigation, and target-recognition software to reduce dependence on vulnerable external links.

AI can also accelerate the targeting process. An ISR unmanned aerial vehicle can generate large amounts of imagery, but that information has limited value if soldiers cannot process it before a target moves. AI-enabled software can help filter sensor feeds, highlight potential threats, maintain tracks, or prioritize information for human operators, reducing the time between detecting an enemy unit and passing coordinates or imagery to a firing element.

Ukraine's wider use of AI in drone warfare demonstrates how this can affect electronic warfare resilience as well as targeting. Recent CSIS analysis highlighted Ukrainian autonomous attack drones that use onboard AI to analyze video, identify targets and decoys, and conduct terminal guidance without depending on a satellite connection that can be jammed. Such developments suggest that AI warfare is increasingly tied to efforts to keep unmanned aircraft effective when conventional navigation and communications are contested.

Russia is moving in the same direction. CSIS reported in April 2026 that Russian development efforts increasingly combine unmanned systems with onboard AI, computer vision, terrain-referenced navigation, and reduced dependence on external communications. This means NATO forces may eventually face not only large numbers of remotely controlled Russian drones, but unmanned aircraft capable of maintaining portions of their mission after communications or navigation links have been disrupted.

The comparison with Russia and Ukraine therefore places the 173rd Airborne Brigade's experimentation in a more demanding context. Both combatants have spent years adapting drones, electronic warfare, counter-UAS systems, software, and tactics under continuous operational pressure, while U.S. and NATO forces are attempting to absorb those lessons through training before confronting similar conditions directly.

ISR unmanned aerial vehicles and FPV drones could give the 173rd layered reconnaissance capability: longer-endurance aircraft search wider areas while smaller systems investigate specific positions or provide immediate tactical observation. Ground robots could further reduce exposure by conducting reconnaissance, route inspection, logistics support, or other missions in areas where sending soldiers would create unnecessary risk.

Saber Junction 26 is important because these technologies are being considered within the requirements of an airborne formation rather than as isolated demonstrations. A paratrooper brigade entering contested territory needs to detect threats quickly, protect its communications, conceal its electronic signature, maintain awareness over dispersed units, and connect reconnaissance with fires before an opposing force completes its own targeting sequence.

For the U.S. Army 173rd Airborne Brigade, the central challenge is therefore not simply acquiring more U.S. Army drones. It is creating an unmanned, AI-enabled reconnaissance architecture that remains useful when Russian-style electronic warfare attacks control links, navigation, and communications. Fiber-optic FPV drones, autonomous navigation, anti-jamming techniques, and AI-assisted targeting emerging from the Russia-Ukraine war show how rapidly this contest is evolving, and why the survivability of future U.S. airborne forces may depend on their ability to detect, decide, and adapt faster than the adversary.

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Written by Alain Servaes – Chief Editor, Army Recognition Group
Alain Servaes is a former infantry non-commissioned officer and the founder of Army Recognition. With over 20 years in defense journalism, he provides expert analysis on military equipment, NATO operations, and the global defense industry.