The U.S. Army has implemented a one-of-a-kind outdoor system to test swarming drones--with a capacity of more than 1,500 times the volume of a typical testing facility.
The U.S. Army has implemented a one-of-a-kind outdoor system to test swarming drones--with a capacity of more than 1,500 times the volume of a typical testing facility.
Future Soldiers will operate with many of these unmanned aircraft systems across the battlespace, using an interconnected swarm to provide capabilities for situational awareness, defense and logistics.
To enable the testing capability, Army researchers worked with PhaseSpace, Inc., to develop a new motion-capture capability that works for outdoor use -- where sunlight interferes with motion-capture devices typically used for purposes such as video game development.
“This new capability enables us to expand the scale of our testing -- from indoor testing in small rooms or spaces typically smaller than half of a basketball court, to now the size of five football fields,” said Dan Everson, a researcher at the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command’s Army Research Laboratory. “This will allow us to replicate more realistic UAS operation conditions and conduct experiments that were previously not possible, such as using cameras to navigate terrains, testing RF [radio frequency] communication within a swarm and flying larger drones.”
Read more at U.S. Army Research Laboratory
Image: A UAS outfitted with both a marker strobe (inset) and a traditional survey prism used to evaluate the accuracy of the motion-capture system. (Credit: U.S. Army photo)
