Pentagon Roadmap Marks the Genesis of New Era in Robotic Aircraft

By RICK BARNARD
Editor in Chief

During the Iraq war, the public spotlight often was focused on the use of unmanned aircraft by U.S. forces. But a far more intriguing story lies within the Pentagon plan for the U.S. military's future use of unmanned aircraft. The Defense Department is developing a diverse array of new craft, some little bigger than the palm of an adult's hand, to perform an ever-increasing number of missions, such as attack, delivery of special operations forces, and searching for chemical weapons.

The military's use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has risen substantially over 12 years. In the 1991 Gulf War, U.S. forces deployed the Pioneer reconnaissance plane. Two days before the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Dyke Weatherington, deputy to the Defense Department's UAV Planning Task Force, said the Pentagon had "in excess of eight different types of UAV systems supporting the warfighter."

As coalition forces raced toward Baghdad in late March, Predator UAVs flew ahead, their infrared sensors and synthetic-aperture radars searching the terrain for dangers the troops could not see. High above, Global Hawks about the size of fighter planes circled at 60,000 feet, reconnoitering the battle area. On the ground, Marines took tiny Dragon Eyes out of their backpacks and launched them by hand like toy planes to probe over the next hill. The five-pound unmanned aircraft are fitted with infrared and daylight imaging devices.

The Pentagon's fleet of 90 unmanned air vehicles is expected to quadruple over seven years, eatherington said at an 18 March Pentagon briefing. The Pentagon has invested $1 billion in UAVs since 2000 and will spend another $10 billion by 2010 (see related article on page 20).

The benefit of that investment may well mark the genesis of a new era in robotic aircraft engaged in tactical missions.

"Ten years hence (2012), DOD will probably be operating F-16-size UAVs capable of supporting a variety of combat and combat support missions," possibly including "deep-strike interdiction," states the "Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Roadmap," published in March by the Office of the Secretary of Defense "to define clear direction" to the military services "for a logical, systematic migration of missions capabilities to a new set of tools."

By 2027, "UAVs may exist with morphing airframes, able to optimize their shape for various missions and flight conditions with stretching skins and shape memory alloys permitting aerodynamic maneuvers impossible for manned aircraft," states the Roadmap.

The unmanned aircraft being developed include the Navy's Finder plane to sniff out chemical and biological weapons. Designed by the Naval Research Laboratory, the expendable robotic craft is launched by another unmanned vehicle, the Predator. It has a range of 50 nautical miles and loiters near a suspected chemical agent cloud for up to two hours. Finder can pass data to its mother aircraft or collect air samples for recovery and analysis by ground troops, according to the Roadmap. The Association of Unmanned Vehicles International (AUVI), Arlington, Va., speculates on its web site that Finder was used in the Iraq war.

The Marine Corps is looking closely at the LEWK, or Loitering Electronic Warfare Killer, being developed by Advanced Technologies Inc. in Newport News, Va. A propeller-driven UAV launched by another aircraft, LEWK transforms itself from a general-purpose bomb into an aircraft by use of its inflatable airfoils. It circles a battlefield for up to eight hours and knocks out enemy air defenses.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is sponsoring development of the Hornet--built by LynnTech Inc. of College Station, Texas, and AeroVironment Inc. of Simi Valley, Calif. Powered entirely by a fuel cell, it weighs six ounces, and has a wingspan of 15 inches.

The Predator has carried out attack missions in Afghanistan and Yemen. AUVI said that attack missions were conducted in Iraq, as well. The Navy's Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle is being developed as a strike aircraft. The Skytote is being developed to transport special forces and resupply them.

Brad Brown, president of AUVI, told Sea Power that the authors of the Roadmap "did a really good job this year. They went from a C- [for the previous Roadmap] to a B+" because of their emphasis on survivability, reliability, and standards.

But bringing out an array of unmanned vehicles, fascinating though they are, is the easy part of the new era in robotic aircraft. The hard part is to make them work seamlessly together within a volatile battle space.

Overall, airspace integration remains a problem, Brown said. The concepts necessary to fly an array of UAVs into, and in, the battle area "need to be worked on." At his press briefing, Weatherington agreed, saying airspace integration is one of the biggest barriers to the successful development and use of UAVs.
Buried within the UAV Roadmap are inklings of what might be achieved as communications and integration issues are resolved. "The need for a UAV to communicate with an [unmanned ground vehicle] is not far off. ... Future [underwater vehicles] may themselves deploy UAVs to extend their capabilities" and improve overall performance, the Roadmap says.

A future in which robots send robots against the nation's adversaries is not a futuristic dream. Making it a reality will be a difficult but possible task. *