Flying eyes

A fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles will co-operate with a ground robot on surveillance tasks in the Australian Outback, in trials to be held next year by BAE Systems. The series of trials are being organised by researchers at the company's Advanced Technology Centre (ATC), to demonstrate its autonomous systems, data fusion and artificial intelligence technologies. The first of the trials, to be held next month with funding from the MoD, will see the team fly the fleet of small UAV research vehicles, fitted with a number of sensors, in a data-gathering exercise. This information will be used to develop algorithms to allow the UAVs to co-operate with each other and act in response to information gathered by aerial and ground sensors, in a trial to be held later in the year. This trial will in turn be followed by another demonstration towards the end of 2005, in which the UAVs will communicate and co-operate with a robot on the ground, said Dr Phil Greenway, head of advanced information processing at the ATC at Filton near Bristol.