Researchers have taught fixed-wing drones to find rising air and gusts, then use those currents to climb or stay aloft with less motor power. The aircraft still needs energy to launch, steer and travel forward; “almost no power” describes reduced propulsion during soaring, not flight without energy.
How can a drone stay aloft on rising air?
Sunlight warms the ground unevenly. Air above warmer patches can rise in columns called thermals. A glider can gain height inside one if the air is rising faster than the aircraft is descending through it. By circling in the lift and moving away from sinking air, it can trade some powered flight for energy supplied by the atmosphere.
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Finding those currents is difficult because useful lift is not a fixed feature of the landscape. UTEP’s Albatross project describes the patterns as small, short-lived and random; researcher John Bird said they may not be picked up by a weather model (UTEP, September 4, 2025). A drone therefore has to respond to conditions it encounters in flight.
How does an autonomous drone detect an updraft?
There is more than one approach. Some systems infer lift from how the aircraft is moving; others use dedicated sensors to detect gusts. The controller then changes the aircraft’s path or attitude to exploit the air rather than simply fly through it.
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Inferring lift from aircraft motion
NASA’s Cloud Swift used a Piccolo autopilot to infer the position and strength of lift from changes in airspeed and altitude. When it detected a thermal, it shut off the engine and circled within the rising air. This approach uses the aircraft’s response as evidence of where the lift is, rather than relying on a dedicated updraft sensor (NASA, June 5, 2013).
Learning how to soar
A Salk Institute and UC San Diego team used reinforcement learning with two-metre-wingspan gliders. Their system used vertical-wind acceleration and roll-wise torque as cues, then controlled bank angle and pitch. The gliders learned from field experience, where turbulence, sensor noise and changing conditions make the air harder to predict than a fixed simulation (Salk Institute, September 19, 2018).
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Sensing gusts directly
RMIT and ISAE-Supaéro developed a related method using gust sensors and an onboard computer. Their drone used sensed gusts and thermals to gain speed or altitude, reducing the work required from its propulsion system (RMIT, November 13, 2018). This is related to thermal soaring, but gust energy and rising thermal lift are not identical sources of atmospheric energy.
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What have the research aircraft demonstrated?
| Project | Aircraft and method | Reported result |
|---|---|---|
| NASA Cloud Swift (2013) | A 15-pound modified motor-glider used airspeed and altitude changes to infer lift; the engine shut off in a thermal. | NASA reported 60 minutes of added endurance. Across 23 updrafts, the aircraft gained an average of 565 feet; in one strong thermal it climbed 2,770 feet. |
| Salk Institute / UC San Diego (2018) | Two-metre-wingspan gliders used reinforcement learning, with vertical-wind acceleration and roll-wise torque as cues. | The gliders reached 700 metres (nearly 2,300 feet). The release did not state an added-endurance figure. |
| RMIT / ISAE-Supaéro (2018) | A drone used gust sensors and an onboard computer to exploit gusts and thermals. | The RMIT release described gains in speed or altitude and reduced propulsion work; it did not state a comparable endurance or altitude figure. |
| UTEP Albatross (2025) | An autonomous-soaring project focused on finding small, short-lived rising-air patterns. | The September 4, 2025, UTEP account did not state a comparable flight-performance figure. |
The figures measure different things: added endurance, altitude gain and maximum height are not interchangeable. In particular, the Cloud Swift’s 60-minute endurance increase is a reported result for that NASA project, not a general promise for other drones.
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Does soaring mean a drone can fly indefinitely?
No. Soaring can reduce how often or how hard the motor must run, but it does not remove the need for energy to launch, control the aircraft or make progress toward a destination. The available lift also varies. Small thermals and gusts can appear and disappear unpredictably, and turbulence and sensor noise complicate the decision about when and how to use them.
That makes autonomous soaring an endurance technique, not a guarantee of continuous flight. A mission still depends on whether useful air is available along the route and whether the aircraft can safely reach and exploit it.
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Where could this approach be useful?
Longer time aloft could help missions constrained by battery or fuel, including forest-fire monitoring, traffic observation, search and rescue, and other long-range uncrewed-aircraft work. NASA also identified possible flight on Mars using dust devils, but that is a proposed application rather than evidence of an operational Mars aircraft. These research demonstrations do not establish widespread commercial deployment.
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Can an RC glider demonstrate the same idea?
A fixed-wing RC glider can illustrate the underlying aerodynamics: it can circle in a thermal and gain height without a motor providing that climb. NASA’s Cloud Swift itself began as a model sailplane. But an ordinary RC glider is not an autonomous thermal-soaring research aircraft; it does not necessarily have the sensors, control software or flight-learning system used in these projects.
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