Development of Sensor Based Tie Downs For UAVs

One of the biggest issues of using unmanned aerialthat go with humans in the military could potentially
vehicles is that they still require a ground support teamreally be a relief to the taxpayer. Better yet, there
of humans to take care of them. But why I ask? Afterwould be fewer mistakes and human error as each
all it is much easier to design robotic ground assistantsrobotic ground unit would have exactly the same
than it is build a tele-robotic unmanned aerial vehicle orsoftware. Am I suggesting robotics for all military
UAV.endeavors in the future? Well, yes, I guess I am thinking
UAVs once on the ground should be able to parkin that direction.
themselves and/or tie themselves down. The groundYou see, the US military has had such great success
robots should be able to tie them down, untie them, fuelwith its UAV program, that it makes sense to take all
them up and do preflight duties. Shell Oil companythis to the next step and to use that to reduce the
developed a robot that can fuel your car if you arecosts spent on military endeavors and increase the
parked in the right spot next to the gas pump, so it'seffectiveness of all operations at the same time. Do, I
easy to see how robotic ground teams could handle allbelieve that this will soon happen? Yes, as a matter of
these things. Why not?fact it's happening before our very eyes as we speak.
Saving on ground crew training and all the other costs