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Aerial Recovery Tests Rendezvous Methods at Dugway Proving Ground

The Aerial Recovery project completed 3 days of flight trials at the Dugway Proving Ground on 24 May 2012. The team flew 37 UAS flights totaling 535 minutes of flight time. New methods for controlling the drogue altitude were flown with a mothership UAS towing a drogue on a 100 meter cable. Aerial rendezvous methods using pure pursuit and velocity pursuit were also tried. The notable accomplishment from this round of testing was flying mothership, drogue and seeker UAS simultaneously using both drogue altitude control and vision rendezvous methods. A number of close passes to the drogue were observed. The next round of flight testing is planned for late June 2012.