The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is working on a way to launch drones into flight and then snag them right out of the air with a system that can be loaded onto a truck or ship. The agency recently released test footage of the next-gen drone tech, currently being developed under the callsign SideArm. It's designed to give the military the ability to manage the flight of large unmanned aerial systems (UASs, aka drones) from just about anywhere. SEE ALSO: Meet the robonauts: NASA's humanoid robots Using the current launch systems, putting these heavy-duty drones in the air requires the runway of a 90,000-ton aircraft carrier, along with a net to catch the aircraft when their flights come to an end. That setup obviously presents some logistical issues when there are no oceans around, so SideArm looks to make the launch pads more mobile.

DARPA boasts that the system can snag a "full-size" drone, but don't expect it to catch any Predators. SideArm can snag a drone as heavy as 1,100 pounds, which means it's not quite strong enough to catch the plane-sized Predator or its larger siblings. There already exist rail-and-hook systems to catch small and medium-sized drones like the ScanEagle. In those systems, the drone deliberately flies into a tall net, halting its momentum. DARPA's experimented with alternative landing and launching systems before, like this quadcopter-launching body and sky hook, with modest success.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has made a system that can catch drones mid-flight. Instead of risking damage when drones need to land in battlefields or on US Navy Ships, the DARPA SideArm capture system can retrieve drones up to 1100 pounds (500 kg) in weight. The system can fit in a shipping container and can be set up and operated by two to four people, enabling the SideArm to be portable. In December 2016, the system was tested with a 400-pound (181 kg) Lockheed Martin Fury Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) drone. Aurora Flight Sciences, who tested the SideArm, accelerated the drone to speeds that it would fly at using an external catapult.