UAV army

MONTEREY, Calif.--The U.S. military knows that drones are an effective way of conducting surveillance, but they may also some day be used as weapons. That's why researchers at the Naval Postgraduate School here are studying ways of creating swarms of unmanned aerial vehicles that could conduct a wide variety of operations.

One is to take part in aerial "Battle Bot" conflict since, the researchers conclude, UAVs are now cheap enough that the military's adversaries may have their own access to large numbers of drones.

That's why Timothy Chung, an assistant professor in the Department of Systems Engineering at the Naval Postgraduate School, is working on the technology behind creating what he hopes will eventually be a 50-on-50 aerial Battle Bot duel.