Finer flights for UAVs

The old saying, "birds of a feather, flock together," can now be applied to a couple of small uninhabited aerial vehicles (UAVs) flown in a NASA research experiment using principles derived from studies of fish and bird motions to simultaneously guide them around obstacles.

Engineers and technicians from NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California, and Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, California, recently conducted flight tests over a 'virtual' forest fire to evaluate new flight-control software that will allow UAVs the ability to autonomously react to obstacles as they fly pre-programmed missions. The tests were conducted over a remote area of Edwards Air Force Base, California, to investigate co-operative flight strategies for airborne monitoring and surveillance of natural disasters and for atmospheric sampling.

"We developed and flight tested several novel approaches for providing assistance to wildfire suppression crews using a team of two small UAVs," said Ames' John Melton, principal investigator for the Networked UAV Teaming Experiment. "The aircraft were flown using a combination of rules from nature and robotics to co-operatively transit and search a virtual forest fire."