It seems that the future skies of earth will incorporate teams of multiple, agile and intelligent aircraft, working in unison to perform a variety of complex tasks.

On the evening of May 7th the three member team of In Motion Aero assembled at the University of Sydney to attend the Royal Aeronautical Society’s lecture and panel discussion on unmanned aerial vehicles and intelligent robotic aircraft.

The lecture theatre slowly reached it’s maximum shortly before facilitator, Doug Nancarrow, Editor of Aviation Business Magazine and Executive Chairman of Safeskies Australia, introduced the night’s panel members.

Salah Sukkarieh, Professor of Robotics and Intelligent Systems and the Director of Research and Innovation at the Australian Centre for Field Robotics (ACFR), compressed and presented almost two decades of research and development into aircraft, algorithms and systems for a wide range of aerial applications, in the first half of the evening’s session.

The presentation provided great insight into the future of unmanned aerial vehicles, where aerial systems can categorise species of trees, weeds, and pests from above, with vastly improved efficiently compared to their human counterparts.

Future systems will be able to adapt their flight plan, in real-time, to better suit their surroundings, including ‘intelligent soaring’ for autonomous long endurance flights.

Research was also presented which demonstrated the viability of mid-air recharging between multiple UAV’s, and the possible networks/flight paths for future logistical operations, considered by the researchers at the University of Sydney.

After a brief intermission and some casual networking, card passing and pizza, Salah and the other panel members responded to various questions and comments thrown forward by both the audience and the facilitator.

Other panel members included KC Wong, Associate Professor at the University of Sydney and President of the Australian Association for Unmanned Systems (AAUS), Bob Germaine, Executive Officer of Regional Development Australia, Sydney and John Young, Principal at KTM Capital, an equity capital market group.