NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center has gained a reputation for being near the leading edge on automated air refueling, so it's no surprise that DARPA has asked them to help figure out how to do it with their long-duration UAVs. At $33M just to perform the tests, it starts to provide a feel for just how expensive the sensor suites on the proposed real-world missions must be. Otherwise, you'd just swap out aircraft on patrol and they would both carry the needed sensors. If the test articles are operated in a manner like operational specimens, the automated system reliability must be high, because operational pilots typically "fly" these airplanes from a keyboard with little opportunity for actual "stick and rudder" inputs.
http://www.nasdaq.com/article/multimedia-release----two-global-hawk-unmanned-aircraft-fly-in-close-formation-move-ahr-program-cl-20121005-00556
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