Boeing teaches two UAVs to flock together

Boeing is always doing some interesting experiments with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) before, and they have just created a new “milestone” with multiple unmanned aerial drones.

Granted, it was only two drones (Boeing ScanEagles), but the company got them to fly together. These vehicles searched a test area through “self-generating waypoints and terrain mapping, and sent information to teams on the ground”.

This means that unmanned aircraft can collect and use data while communicating with each other for their mission. I’m sure that you can easily imagine more than two aircraft involved in a search-and-rescue mission or perhaps a military invasion.

Are we looking at a future where swarms of these automated airplanes will be our advanced Air Force? Think of the scene in Independence Day where all those tiny fighters invaded that base. We could be those aliens!

Of course, I wonder how in the world we can get all those planes to work together so they don’t shoot down the wrong targets. Something tells me that this is going to be a whole new type of interface.

Then there is that scary situation where the whole army of robot planes turn on us. Think of the movie Stealth but with many planes instead of just one. I hope that someone isn’t taking that idea and making a sequel to that film, because it was horrible.

Posted in: Gadgets