Boeing has received a three-year, $9.8 million contract from the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory to further develop and demonstrate technologies that will enable multiple small unmanned aerial vehicles to coordinate with each other and a manned airborne control station to more safely and effectively carry out intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions.

The Foxhunt Multi-Small Unmanned Aerial System Cooperative Control Demonstration will leverage Boeing's networked systems expertise and technology advancements to directly support an emerging and challenging U.S. Air Force need.

"The focus of the Foxhunt program is the airborne control of a varied mix of unmanned aerial vehicles," said Patrick Stokes of Boeing Research and Technology, the company's advanced, central research, technology and innovation organization, who will manage the research effort.

"It's part of a grander vision outlined by the Air Force Research Laboratory to include the air launch, command-and-control and airborne recovery of unmanned aerial systems - all from an airborne mothership."

Stokes said the unmanned aerial systems are intended to be an extension of the manned mothership's sensor and weapon suites, improving situational awareness and intelligence, as well as surveillance and reconnaissance reach, allowing for safer stand-off distances.

The team working on this effort includes researchers from the Boeing Research and Technology and Boeing Test and Evaluation groups of Boeing's Engineering, Operations and Technology organization; Boeing Defense, Space and Security's Phantom Works organization; and Insitu, a wholly owned independent Boeing subsidiary.

Jonathan How, a renowned researcher from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the area of unmanned aerial vehicle cooperative planning, also is on the team.

"This research project is a good fit within Boeing's overall research-and-technology strategy," said Jim Paunicka, a Boeing Technical Fellow and the program's principal investigator.

"It supports research and technology roadmaps in many Boeing programs, helping to further the development of technologies involving airborne communications and networking, unmanned aerial systems, control station architecture, multi-mission planning, and command-and-control."