The US Air Force (USAF) Research Laboratory is expected to issue a broad agency announcement (BAA) as early as February to begin the second phase of a programme that aims to enable the autonomous refuelling of an unmanned aircraft. Officials from Boeing, which recently completed the first phase of the government-sponsored Automated Aerial Refuelling (AAR) project, said that the autonomous refuelling of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) could become an operational reality as soon as 2012 if the USAF maximises resources behind the project.
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