The Air Force Office of Scientific Research is working with Brigham Young University to develop the means for unmanned aerial vehicles to coordinate with one another, according to BYU professor Tim McLain. “We’ve developed and demonstrated cooperative timing methods that would enable simultaneous strike-type execution by UAVs,” said McLain. The research team has been able to coordinate simultaneous arrival by three UAVs, seeing them arrive within fractions of a second over a target. Other experiments have surmounted problems such as inconsistent information and changing perimeters. (Read more here.)
Fresh off its most ambitious test yet of an autonomous cargo plane, the Air Force is preparing to go even bigger by deploying and operating another such aircraft for an entire year.
