The Air Force Office of Scientific Research recently hosted a forum to discuss the advance of micro air vehicles—extremely small unmanned aerial vehicles. Current MAV technology runs to vehicles about six inches long, but researchers are looking toward the not too distant day when they may have “insect-size” UAVs. The end game, they say, is to fill “a variety of critical new military needs, chiefly in urban areas.” The forum gathered some 70 attendees from universities around the world, as well as government and industry researchers.
A recent seven-day exercise sent Air Force F-22s—along with other USAF aircraft—to austere, challenging environments across Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. Agile Reaper, taking place for the second time after its inaugural edition last year, featured 800 Airmen and 29 aircraft across five different locations from April 10-16, training…