Mar 17 2005
From The Space Library
NASA announced the successful completion of flight tests above a virtual forest fire to evaluate new flight-control software on board two small UAVs. The software experiment had sought to guide the UAVs simultaneously around obstacles, using principles derived from studies of the movements of fish and birds. Engineers and technicians from NASA's ARC and DFRC had conducted the flight tests over a remote area of Edwards Air Force Base in California, to investigate cooperative flight strategies for atmospheric sampling and for airborne monitoring and surveillance of natural disasters. John E. Melton of ARC, Principal Investigator for the Networked UAV Teaming Experiment, explained that his team had used two autopilot-equipped APV-3 UAVs, each with a 12-foot wingspan, to flight-test several novel approaches for assisting wildfire-suppression crews. The two craft had flown along computer-generated paths to demonstrate their ability to avoid obstacles in a cooperative and synchronized manner, without the assistance of flight personnel. Melton commented that the technology could eventually enable swarms of aircraft to move safely from one area to another as a group, collecting air samples on scientific missions or helping ground personnel monitor natural disasters. (NASA, “New Software Allows UAVs to Team Up for Virtual Experiments,” news release 05-078, 17 March 2005, http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2005/mar/HQ_05078_UAV_Software.html (accessed 6 June 2009).)
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