Image to right: One of two small APV-3 aircraft flown in the joint Ames-Dryden Networked UAV Teaming Experiment flares for landing on a roadway on a remote area of Edwards AFB.

Whether "flocks" of small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) can maneuver to automatically avoid obstacles while in motion, as do flocks of birds or schools of fish, was the question behind NASA researchers' test flights of two UAVs in spring 2005.

The Networked Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle (NUAV) team flew the autopilot-equipped, 12-foot wingspan vehicles over a virtual forest fire to evaluate new software that allows vehicles to react to obstacles as they fly pre-programmed missions. The software, developed from a mathematical tool created by Hollywood special effects artists to map the movements of film characters, identified landmarks on a grid representing the forest fire search area, automatically developed flight plans, and transmitted them to each vehicle.

This same technology may one day enable swarms of aircraft to move safely from one area to another as a flock or group, collecting air samples for science missions or helping ground personnel monitor forest fires and natural disasters.

NUAVTE Team
NASA Ames Research Center, NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, RnR Products