Swarm

Swarm is a coordinated team of drones: one 'master' leading any number of others, all built on the 5-inch Zeus quadcopter. They fly as a single formation, covering more ground than a lone UAV while the mission carries on even if a drone drops out. If the master is lost or neutralised, another drone automatically takes over the lead and the rest fall in behind it — so there's no single point of failure. The swarm's intelligence runs onboard each aircraft, coordinating the formation over a long-range radio link, with every drone on a proven ArduPilot autopilot for stable, GPS-guided flight. Automatic return-to-launch and auto-land failsafes bring the drones home safely, and the whole swarm is flown and monitored from a single ground station for tactical, surveillance and autonomy research.