Making UAVs Self-Sufficient

The vehicle lands with its propellers removed. (U.S. Army)

Army researchers developed an approach that allows a rotary wing unmanned air vehicle (UAV) to land on a moving unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) without the aid of GPS and recharge before moving on. Teams of autonomous air and ground agents will enable operations in search and rescue environments that are too remote or dangerous for humans but often require extensive positioning and communication infrastructure.

Researchers performed all of the computations onboard the vehicle using low-cost sensors and computers. No communications occurred between the UAV and UGV.

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