Palm-sized micro flyers described at conference

17 Jun 2002

Imagine an aircraft small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, yet able to fly into damaged buildings to search for survivors or onto battlefields to detect toxic chemicals.

"Micro Air Vehicles" capable of these and other tasks are the goals for a new program sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The technical challenges of building such air vehicles will be the focus for a two-day conference at the Georgia Institute of Technology February 19-20.

The agenda for the "First International Conference on Emerging Technologies for Micro Air Vehicles" includes 17 technical presentations from more than a dozen organizations studying the rapidly-expanding area, as well as presentations from officials of DARPA and the Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Office (DARO).