The Air Force is seeking apps that will allow more efficient sensor processing on UAVs.
The goal is an open-architecture computing cloud for UAV sensors, according to the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) proposal.
Resource: Read the SBIR
"This SBIR effort seeks to develop and deploy one or more applications (Apps), similar in concept to those hosted on smart phones and within ground-based clouds, which can access this collected data, process it and then exploit the results using existing or newly developed algorithms," the Air Force said. Thus instead of having to download and process the data through ground-based clouds once the UAV has landed, the app can resolve detect and resolve issues that will more autonomous operation of sensors while in flight, as well as monitor and fix sensor maintenance issues while airborne.
