Patent ID: 7975958

Claim:
An autonomous modular flyer operable to loiter over an area of interest at a first high altitude, comprising: an airborne object including two wings, each wing having a wingtip with a hinge thereon, each wingtip being operably joinable to another autonomous modular flyer's wingtip to form an aggregation when a first predetermined condition is met, and being operably disaggregable from the other autonomous modular flyer's wingtip when a second predetermined condition is met; wherein the aggregation a is a multiple-articulated flying system having a high aspect ratio wing platform, operable to loiter over the area of interest at an altitude at least as high as the first high altitude; and wherein a gap seal is arranged to cover the hinges on upper and lower wing surfaces when two wingtips are joined, the gap seal having a geometric constraint for accommodating up to a fixed amount of flapping between adjacent autonomous modular flyers before the hinges allow separation thereof.