I'm sorry to have to be negative on this. I look at a bunch of this stuff that is DOD/Armed Forces funded and all I have seen for decades are nothing less than what I would call scams. Total waste of taxpayer money. And this isn't universities only, it's companies that win stupid-as-fuck "research" grants and produce crap in return.

There are a few companies out there playing with what are nothing more than ridiculously expensive toy RC planes (< 6 ft wingspan) that almost anyone could build out of parts available in the open market.

This MIT thing is nothing less than an overgrown model airplane. It uses what looks like a stock 4 stroke model airplane engine with a stock model airplane propeller. It probably uses stock model airplane servos, electronics and 2.4 GHz TX/RX.

Oh, wait, advanced materials. Nope. I have been designing and building RC airplanes as a hobby for three decades. I was vacuum-bagging large (12 foot wingspan) glider wings from fiberglass, carbon fiber and also Kevlar twenty years ago. I still have and use my vacuum bagging setup to build planes today. I have also made custom carbon fiber propellers by CNC machining aluminum molds and stuffing them with epoxy impregnated carbon fiber rovings.

So, this is what I would call "advanced hobby" stuff.

Special airfoils? Nah. Any serious RC glider pilot who has built planes knows what airfoils to use. Not a secret. These guys didn't do anything special on that front.

Oh, but it can be taken apart and stuffed into a box for FedEx shipping. Guess what, so can any large scale RC glider. Nothing new there. Make the wing in six foot sections and you are golden.

Yeah but...

Yeah but nothing.

Here's a guy flying an OFF THE SHELF 6 meter wingspan RC glider. What do you think the wings are made from?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3xxjqpIRNg

That's nearly 20 feet. The MIT "drone" has a 24 foot wingspan.

Here's another guy flying a 6.5 m, 21 ft motorized glider:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_U_e_EEduo

Replace the electric motor with an internal combustion engine and a fuel tank and bingo. Again, off the shelf.

And here are a BUNCH of guys with huge gliders, powered and not, including one that has a 51 FOOT wingspan. And, look, no truck for launch, they use another large scale RC airplane to tow it up to altitude.

Here's a list of a bunch of large scale RC sailplanes you can buy off the shelf today.

https://www.scalesoaring.com/scale-sailplanes

Here's an 8 to 8.8 meter (~26 to 27 ft) DG 1000 S you can buy and build for about $5,000 Euro:

https://www.paritech.de/content/modelle/dg1000.php

Shame on MIT for being a part of a scam. It's embarrassing.