NASA will be able to develop novel UAVs that will exploit atmospheric features and increase the efficiency of these aircraft. Moreover NASA expressed a need for improving dropsondes. In order to explore more efficiently atmospheric features, these dropsondes need to be guided. The technology developed in this proposal can be applied to these devices. The development of an autopilot optimizing the fuel consumption is of interest to the civilian and military market. Usage of UAVs by military forces is rapidly accelerating. One of the advantages of unmanned systems is that they can be very light since they do not need to carry a pilot. When unmanned aircraft are piloted from the ground, the communication can be intercepted and the aircraft cannot remain stealthy. Therefore, it is desirable for a UAV to fly autonomously for the longest period of time. Our approach that allows the aircraft to fly autonomously for extended periods of time has strong support from Boeing and Lockheed-Martin (see letters of support at end of proposal) and can be used with their fleet of vehicles such as the K-MAX, Desert Hawk III, Sky Spirit, SURGE-V, EER, Samurai, and Nighthawk Micro UAVs.
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