Photo: Boeing
It’s less than a month since aerospace giant Boeing announced it will invest heavily in the development of flying autonomous aircraft, and word of progress in this field surfaced from Australia.
In the land Down Under, Boeing is working with local authorities to test new onboard autonomous command and control technologies. At the end of last week, the company announced the technology was successfully put to the test at a regional Queensland airfield.
On-site, five unmanned drones managed to complete without a hitch in-air programmed missions as a team, in a synchronized test flight that required no input from a human pilot. As a result of the successful tests, more advanced behaviors will be integrated into autonomous drones, that will be used including for underwater missions.
“What we’ve created here in Australia has the potential to transform the use of unmanned vehicles for civil, commercial and defense applications – whether that be in the air, on the ground or out at sea,” said in a statement Shane Arnott, director of Boeing Phantom Works International.
“This capability will be a huge driver of efficiency and productivity. By safely teaming unmanned systems with human-operated systems, we keep people away from dull, dirty and dangerous tasks so they can focus on activities that machines can’t or shouldn’t do.”
At the same time it is doing this in Australia, Boeing has set up the new Boeing Aerospace & Autonomy Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts. There, together with its Aurora Flight Sciences subsidiary, Boeing will be designing, building and flying autonomous machines.
The company did not provide any details about what type of autonomous aircraft it is working on, but Aurora is famous for several vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) projects, some sanctioned by DARPA, including the eVTOL, the Orion drone, or the optionally piloted aircraft (OPA) Centaur.
On-site, five unmanned drones managed to complete without a hitch in-air programmed missions as a team, in a synchronized test flight that required no input from a human pilot. As a result of the successful tests, more advanced behaviors will be integrated into autonomous drones, that will be used including for underwater missions.
“What we’ve created here in Australia has the potential to transform the use of unmanned vehicles for civil, commercial and defense applications – whether that be in the air, on the ground or out at sea,” said in a statement Shane Arnott, director of Boeing Phantom Works International.
“This capability will be a huge driver of efficiency and productivity. By safely teaming unmanned systems with human-operated systems, we keep people away from dull, dirty and dangerous tasks so they can focus on activities that machines can’t or shouldn’t do.”
At the same time it is doing this in Australia, Boeing has set up the new Boeing Aerospace & Autonomy Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts. There, together with its Aurora Flight Sciences subsidiary, Boeing will be designing, building and flying autonomous machines.
The company did not provide any details about what type of autonomous aircraft it is working on, but Aurora is famous for several vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) projects, some sanctioned by DARPA, including the eVTOL, the Orion drone, or the optionally piloted aircraft (OPA) Centaur.
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