NASA’s Langley Research Center released a video last week showing four large drones (called Hives) releasing over 100 smaller drones known as ‘Cicadas’, at the Beaver Dam Airpark in Virginia. Cicada, developed by the US Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), stands for “Close-in Covert Autonomous Disposable Aircraft.” These small drones can fit in the palm of a hand.
According to NRL, CICADA is a concept for a low-cost, GPS-guided, micro disposable air vehicle that can be deployed in large numbers to “seed” an area with miniature electronic payloads.
These payloads could be interconnected to form an ad-hoc, self-configuring network. Communication nodes, sensors, or effectors can then be placed in a programmable geometric pattern in hostile territory without directly over-flying those regions or exposing human agents on the ground.
However, NASA is also looking into usefulness of these small drones as tools for meteorologists, which could provide a valuable inside look at storm systems in the future.
The NASA-tested drones come equipped with temperature, air pressure and wind-speed sensors. The drones could one day be dropped through clouds or storm systems to gather detailed data during their descents.
