Aerospace

What's next for drones? Swarming, lasers, and wingmen, military leaders say

The next generation of remotely piloted aircraft could swarm enemy defenses, serve as wingmen for pilots, attack targets with lasers, or work as mobile weather radar.

Aerospace experts say that the technology is becoming advanced enough that drones can now take on a host of missions far beyond their normal reconnaissance and ground-strike roles.

“We’re just at the very early stages of what robotics and autonomous systems might do,” said Paul Scharre, a retired Army Ranger who helped craft some of the Pentagon’s drone policies while at the Office of the Secretary of Defense.