Boeing announced Thursday that it will pursue technologies that enable multiple small, remotely piloted aircraft to coordinate their activities with each other and with a manned airborne control station. The Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, has awarded the company a three-year, $10 million contract for this work under an initiative called “Foxhunt.” The goal is to allow these RPA to carry out intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance missions more safely and effectively. “The focus of the Foxhunt program is the airborne control of a varied mix of unmanned aerial vehicles,” explained Boeing’s Patrick Stokes. He said this is actually part of AFRL’s “grander vision” of having airborne “motherships” launch, command, and then recover these small RPA.
KAENA POINT SPACE FORCE STATION, Oahu, Hawaii—At the rocky edge of a cliff on Hawaii’s Oahu island are poised three antenna dishes that rotate with the sun. Together, they form part of a global network to warn warfighters of solar activity that can disrupt radio signals and potentially send false…