The Royal Netherlands Aerospace Centre (NLR) is launching the Quick Response Drone Facility (QRDF) in Marknesse today. This facility contributes to the broader ambition of Defence to become a pioneer in the field of unmanned systems, together with industry and knowledge institutions. The Minister of Defence, Ruben Brekelmans, was present to support the importance of the QRDF facility and reaffirm Defence's ambition to innovate more quickly.
For defence, unmanned systems (drones) are playing an increasingly important role in carrying out their tasks. The war in Ukraine demonstrates that they are being deployed on a large scale: it is no longer just a conflict between armed forces, but also a conflict between industries and innovation. A key factor on the battlefield is who can produce the most, innovate the fastest and sustain it the longest.
To give the armed forces an edge in combat and maintain it, it is essential to quickly gain, share, and apply knowledge and experience. The Quick Response Drone Facility (QRDF) of NLR is a key initiative to achieve this by combining existing knowledge, expertise, and facilities with integrated collaboration between industry, applied knowledge institutions, and partners. This enables lessons from the field to be quickly translated into solutions. The goal of the QRDF is to make a new drone or drone functionality operationally available to Defence within four to six weeks, with the integrated collaboration at its core to ensure implementation and scalability.
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Download free sample pages More informationQRDF as a driving force behind drone innovation
The location of NLR in the municipality of Noordoostpolder offers an optimal opportunity for the development of unmanned systems. There is a closed airspace where non-certified, experimental unmanned systems can fly above and around the NLR site. Additionally, there is a connection to the knowledge and test centre for smart mobility (MITC), and NLR has various facilities, such as the Drone Centre and the Automated Composites & Metal Manufacturing Technology Centre, to enable research and testing of innovative scalable solutions that Defence needs.
Bert Thuis, Vice President Aerospace Vehicles at NLR, states: “The QRDF is part of a broader R&D, test, and development environment in Flevoland, where we can make a new drone or functionality operational for Defence in a matter of weeks. As a strategic knowledge partner for Defence, we can quickly switch with parties at a strategic level. In drones, we see a much higher innovation pace than, for example, in aircraft, with smaller industrial parties leading the way. The QRDF offers an ideal opportunity to learn from each other and create space for short-cycle innovation.”
“Thanks to QRDF, we were able to develop essential drone functionalities to a high level within six weeks and subsequently demonstrate them operationally to the requirement setters of the Ministry of Defence. This project underlined the strength of collaboration between us as an industrial party and NLR as a knowledge institution – a valuable combination of expertise and test capacity. QRDF is an important step towards rapidly translating operational needs into commercial strength,” adds Lennart Bult, co-founder of Emergent Swarm Solutions.
Prior to the launch on 21 May 2025, several projects have been carried out:
Much has been learned from these projects, and it has been proven that it is worthwhile to continue the QRDF organisation. It offers the opportunity to work even more integratedly; with industry, but also with Defence units and other knowledge partners.
Initially, it involves so-called Class-I UAS (a NATO classification for the relatively smaller drones under 150kg). In the long term, the new way of working can also be applied iteratively to the development of more advanced and larger drones, such as launched effects (LE) and autonomous collaborative platforms (ACP).
