Unmanned Gliders Seek Lift

From the AvWeb AvFlash news:

Unmanned Gliders To Seek Their Own Lift

"Automated on-board energy aware planning" is being developed by the
U.K.'s Roke Manor Research to allow autonomous gliders to find
naturally occurring lift and sustain unpowered or prolong powered
flight, according to a report in ElectronicsWeekly.com. Ultimately,
aircraft equipped with software and hardware that actively processes
video feeds of cloud conditions and surface type (cool grass, or hot
pavement) data would be processed along with other elements (models
assessing weather and predicting vertical air movement due to thermal
and orographic lift) to identify thermals and share that information
with similar aircraft nearby. With that information, a virtual and
real-time lift map could help produce waypoint sequences for use by
integrated flight management systems aboard the aircraft as they
hopscotch from lift-point to lift-point along a route.

The aircraft would literally be led to their required destination via
a route that applies all acquired information to avoid areas of sink
and exploit the best areas of lift between the departure point and
destination point. Current proposed applications for the developing
technology include extending the flight range of unmanned aerial
vehicles.