Boeing has passed an important landmark ahead of using Cloncurry's new drone test facility later this year.
The aviation giant has conducted an end-to-end flight mission using three high performance test beds in a milestone for its Autonomous Systems Platform Technology Project.
Emily Hughes, director of Boeing's Phantom Works International said the mission's goal was to completely test out mission system software from start to finish, using three high performance jets.
During the flight at Tara in southern Queensland, Boeing Australia successfully performed tests including the three jets taking off autonomously, achieving the required in air formations, departing from the formation and each autonomously landing.
"While we have previously flown larger numbers aircraft autonomously, this was our first opportunity to perform an end-to-end mission test with three high performance test bed aircraft, at speeds of up to 200 kilometres per hour," Ms Hughes said.
"The test returned pleasing results, demonstrating our mission system is performing as intended, and it is a huge credit to our technical team, along with our suppliers RFDesigns who supported the flight mission on-site."
The Autonomous Systems Platform Technology Project is Boeing's second Advance Queensland investment partnership with the Queensland Government. Boeing and its partners are developing new on-board autonomous command and control technology to enable unmanned vehicles to perceive, process, communicate and act in accordance with their programmed mission - without input from a human operator.
Kate Jones, Minister for State Development, Tourism and Innovation, said Boeing would continue flight tests for the project in Cloncurry later this year.
"We look forward to the company being the first user of the Cloncurry Flight Test Facility, Australia's first drone flight test facility," Ms Jones said.
"We've invested $14.5 million to develop the new facility, which we believe is critical to an Unmanned Aerial System industry in the state, creating jobs and economic benefits in Queensland."
The technology developed as part of this project is informing Boeing's development autonomous aircraft, including the Boeing Airpower Teaming System, also known as Loyal Wingman,