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Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Take Center Stage
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Take Center Stage
Programs in Turmoil as Demand Grows
(November 1995-January 1996) Once maligned as a poor relation of spy planes and satellites, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have recently become the darlings of the armed services. Pentagon planners have latched onto UAVs, proposing missions far removed from their original intelligence-gathering purposes including targeting for Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles, electronic warfare, communications relay, and sampling possibly lethal environments, such as in suspected chemical or biological attacks.
In a reconnaissance capacity, UAVs fill a gap between satellites and manned reconnaissance flights. Satellite technology, though advanced, is logistically and economically unfeasible in situations requiring spot reconnaissance. Manned aircraft, on the other hand, cannot loiter and focus on a particular spot for long stretches of time as they are susceptible to hostile fire.
The Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Office (DARO), the Pentagon office created two years ago to oversee the various UAV projects, channels funding for all tactical reconnaissance assets and provides the tactics and overall philosophy for the various reconnaissance programs. DARO has delegated the administration of the Joint Tactical and Medium Altitude Endurance UAV programs to the Joint Projects Office (JPO) and the High Altitude Endurance UAV to the Advance Research Projects Agency (ARPA).
Classifications for UAVs have changed since DARO's creation. The short- and medium- range classes have been replaced by the Joint Tactical, along with Medium Altitude Endurance and High Altitude Endurance UAVs. [Ed. note: Security Affairs has long reported on UAV systems, most recently in the March-April 1995 issue.]
Since the Gulf War showed that the American public's extremely low tolerance for casualties could be satisfied, the Pentagon has been scrambling to find ways to ensure such successes in the future. Although not capable of entirely replacing manned reconnaissance aircraft, "lowering the risks to pilots and crews is the essence of the UAVs," said JPO spokesman Ray Colemon.
UAVs also fill a gap in satellite reconnaissance. As Colemon explained to Security Affairs in an exclusive interview, intelligence needs in places such as Bosnia often call for circling over mobile targets such as armor and artillery, the so-called "shoot and scoot" targets which often hide under camouflage for long periods of time, fire, and then move quickly to new hiding sites. UAVs can be trained on such targets and track them for hours at a time. "The place of the UAV... has always been flying into a target area defended by an integrated air defense system."
At present, Colemon said, despite all of the various proposals floated for UAV operations, the JPO will concentrate on two main "show-stopper" features designed to sell the UAV to a skeptical armed services audience: a heavy fuel engine resistant to accidental combustion, and a common automated recovery which will increase the ease with which the UAV can be landed and decrease the number of accidents caused by inexperienced operators.
Sizewise, the Joint Tactical is the smallest class of UAV and is geared for the field commander who needs to view the general battlefield area. The class includes the Hunter and the yet to be built Maneuver UAV systems.
The Hunter UAV system is manufactured by TRW of San Diego, California with Israel Aircraft Industries as a major subcontractor. The first modern American UAV to reach operational status, the Hunter is designed to fly up to 150 km from front lines and can stay airborne for up to eight hours. However, recent events indicate that the program will not proceed past the initial development phase.
Two types of Hunter systems were expected to be built. A land-based version of the Hunter was to be used mainly by the Army and the Marine Corps and a naval-based system modified for a shipboard environment.
The Hunter has had a checkered career within the armed services. When first rolled out in 1991, the system experienced difficulties including several crashes, mainly due to operator error, leading to the loss of five aircraft. A 1992 evaluation by the General Accounting Office (GAO) cited more than 100 technical problems with the system and recommended that the program be cut.
Colemon said the GAO report, which led to a review of the Joint Tactical UAV effort, actually helped the project immensely by providing recommendations which helped fine-tune the program. The Hunter resumed flying in March 1995 and performed almost without problem, accumulating more than 1,000 hours in the air flawlessly save for two minor incidents in July. As of September 1995, TRW had delivered four Hunter systems, each consisting of eight UAVs, a launch and recovery station, two ground control stations, and a radar system.
Storm clouds continued to gather over the program, however. Under fire for three crashes between late August and mid-September 1995 as well as rising costs, the Pentagon's Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC) study group on UAVs recommended that the Hunter system be canceled after the seven low-rate initial production systems are built. It is important to note, claim backers of the Hunter program, that because of cuts made after the Army's procurement budgets were approved, the Army brass was forced to choose between the Hunter and more basic needs such as trucks and ammunition. Additionally, there are rumors within the defense community that Hunter was done in by key UAV customers opposed to an Israeli interest in an American intelligence gathering system.
In December 1995 JROC again recommended the program be terminated. Instead, Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology Paul Kaminski chose to accept all seven low- rate production systems but to terminate the program at that point. In a plan referred to as "one-plus," one full Hunter system will be deployed to Fort Hood, Texas and a half system will be sent to Fort Huachuca, Arizona. Put into the hands of soldiers, the systems will allow for continuing operational research and experimentation and the refinement of operational doctrine and tactics. Furthermore, the full unit will also serve as a deployable UAV unit for use in conflict. The remaining 44 air vehicles will be maintained in a ready issue status, similar to a war reserve.
Along with the land- and sea-based version of the Hunter, the third component of the Joint Tactical program is the Maneuver UAV which at this point exists only on paper. It is intended to support a battalion-size element of military forces over an area of 30-50 km. The program's exact requirements have become increasingly less defined and Colemon said the eventual winner of the contract will be the best combination of endurance and payload. ARPA intends that the Maneuver UAV be fielded within two years under a fast-track acquisition plan called an Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration (ACTD) program.
The operational requirements for the Medium Altitude Endurance (MAE) UAV were first spelled out in the statement of need initiated two years ago by the JPO. According to Capt. Alan Rutherford, USN, head of the MAE UAV project, the JPO sought "an unmarked aircraft that could provide endurance reconnaissance surveillance capabilities, specifically looking at things that were a long ways away."
The requirements called for an unmanned vehicle capable of flying at altitudes of up to 25,000 feet, operating at a radius of up to 500 miles from its launch site, and remaining in the air for more than 24 hours. "The desired payloads were to be imaging payloads," Rutherford said. Specifically, the Predator was originally equipped with electro optical and infrared (EO/IR), known as day/night, cameras. These are being replaced with Westinghouse-built synthetic aperture radars (SAR) "that had a very specific requirement of at least one foot resolution with the aircraft flying at or above 15,000 feet."
General Atomics of California was given a contract to produce 10 Predator UAVs, a 27- foot- long unmanned vehicle with a wing span of 49 feet and a 450-lb payload capacity, to be used in a two-year ACTD which began in July 1994.
Each Predator system is composed of three aircraft, along with a ground control station and a "Trojan Spirit" mobile relay. "We think three aircraft are sufficient to maintain an operational tempo of an airplane on-station 24 hours a day, seven days a week for six months," Rutherford said. The UAV transmits its information via a communications satellite to the "Trojan Spirit" which then relays the information to the ground station and commands from the ground station back to the UAV.
The reconnaissance capability of UAVs has progressed greatly from "old- fashioned" picture taking and radio reports. Even modern spy planes are only capable of transmitting photographs, which entail two disadvantages: such static images are of limited use in a mobile combat situation, and if the plane is lost, so are its cameras and film.
The next step in reconnaissance technology was the transmission of real-time moving images. From the outset, UAVs have been designed to provide just this type of information. Until recently, the transmission frequency constrained the images, which could be sent at any given time, creating a trade-off for the user. Under these constraints, the UAV could only provide low-resolution real-time video or static high-resolution pictures transmitted 60-90 seconds apart.
The Predator has attained a new level of information gathering capability due to its usage of the Satcom, which will enable it to resolve this trade-off. The Satcom system operates at the commercial wideband frequency, allowing it to transmit greatly increased amounts of information, including video imagery which is both clear and in real time. JPO received this technology five months ahead of schedule, equipping the most recent Predator dispatched to Bosnia with it in Fall 1995.
The Predator has become the UAV with the highest profile, primarily due to its usage over the former Yugoslavia. As part of its ACTD, three Predators made their field debut over the skies of Bosnia in June 1995, equipped with the standard EO/IR cameras and a Satcom datalink.
The Predator program ran into trouble in early August when two of the aircraft were lost in one week. Early reports said that the first, newly equipped with Satcom capability, was shot down by anti-aircraft fire. Rutherford, however, stressed that the JPO has not concluded fully that the UAV was shot down. Four days later, a second Predator experienced engine problems and its operators destroyed it. Rutherford said that they know what the problem was and are working to understand why it occurred.
Rutherford does not foresee problems with the Predator in connection with losing the two craft over Bosnia. "The whole idea of the ACTD was to rapidly pull these technologies together, put them into the hands of the users in the field, and support them with logistics tails, trained and qualified pilots, payload operators, analysts, maintenance technicians," he said. "The users developed a concept of operations ... and they were flying the aircraft in accordance with those operational concepts. And again, because it's an unmanned reconnaissance aircraft, it's intended to be able to go in difficult and dangerous places."
Colemon is more optimistic regarding the effect the downing of the two Predators had on the program as a whole. "The Predator on the ground over there is a hero because it's not Captain O'Grady or whoever might have been there if it had not been for the Predator. That's the essence of what UAVs are all about."
So far, the future of the Predator program beyond the 10 units in existence is unclear. Rutherford said that Congress has been forthcoming with the money budgeted to get the program through the conclusion of the ACTD, which is scheduled to end on July 1, 1996. At that time, the Predator program will move into a maintenance phase in which DARO has budgeted enough money to keep the systems operational.
"But that really is the total nature of the Predator program," Rutherford said. "Build 10 aircraft, three ground stations. Provide for end-to-end dissemination of information from the aircraft to the end user. It's unclear yet that this program will ever transition into production because [no military service] has stood up [for it] yet. It's too early in the cycle to say ‘we want to build more of these things.'"
The High Altitude Endurance (HAE) class of UAVs, currently administered by ARPA, consists of two different systems: the Tier II Plus, produced by Teledyne Ryan Aeronautical and the Tier III Minus, also known as the DarkStar, produced by Lockheed Martin/Boeing. What differentiates these two systems from the other UAVs, according to Col. Doug Carlson, USAF, deputy program director of the High Altitude Endurance UAV program at ARPA, is "[an] ability to gather information from a much broader area than the other systems would do."
As a class, HAE UAVs are capable of loitering at extremely high altitudes. The two systems are designed, however, to be used in situations of differing risk.
"The term we use sometimes for Tier II Plus is ‘the work horse' and that would be the one that would be used in the majority of situations," Carlson said. The Tier II plus is the size of a jet fighter airplane. It is 44.4-feet-long vehicle with a wing span of 116.2 feet and a 2,000-lb payload. It can hover at 60-65,000 feet at a distance of 3,000 nautical miles for 24 hours.
Of the two HAE UAVs, the Tier II Plus carries greater reconnaissance capability, including both EO/IR capability and a modified synthetic aperture radar (SAR) coupled with infrared sensors and a charge coupled device, or CCD, camera. The SAR and one other sensor can be employed simultaneously, providing ground commanders a better real-time view of ground conditions. As Carlson explained, the Tier II Plus is designed for use in moderate to non-threatening situations where weighty defensive devices can be traded for increased intelligence-gathering capability, what Carlson terms "maximum reconnaissance for the buck."
Tier III Minus, the DarkStar, is designed for use in hostile situations. As such, it trades off some reconnaissance capability for a higher degree of survivability. The DarkStar is smaller than the Tier II Plus and carries either a SAR or an EO camera with no IR capability. It loiters at an altitude of 45,000 feet and can operate at a distance of 500 nautical miles for up to eight hours.
Lockheed Martin/Boeing and Teledyne Ryan have both been contracted for two high- altitude systems. The two systems share the same ground station and communications relay, and are specifically designed to be intercompatible. Although many people falsely perceive that UAVs are nothing more than large, radio-controlled model airplanes, Carlson stresses that the high altitude UAVs are extremely sophisticated vehicles which are controlled by computer. "One of the major differences between these and most other UAVs that people think about is that these are fully automatic," Carlson said. "There is no stick-and-rudder. Everything is preprogrammed."
Lockheed Martin/Boeing rolled out the first DarkStar on June 1. Carlson said that ARPA expects to fly it by early October 1995. The Tier II Minus UAV is currently under design review, and Teledyne Ryan is expected to deliver the first vehicle in late 1996, with the first flight expected at the beginning of 1997.
The trade-off between survivability and reconnaissance comes as a result of a $10 million per-unit price cap which ARPA and DARO imposed on the contractors. Carlson said the $10 million figure came as the result of a study designed to find an affordable cost for the UAV in order to lessen the financial blow if the vehicle is lost and to make the operators less fearful about using it in hostile situations.
Critics have argued that the two programs are redundant, and that the Pentagon should push for a combined "maximum reconnaissance, maximum survivability UAV." The contractors have estimated the price for a highly survivable Tier II Plus UAV at $35-$45 million per copy. "Our feeling is that that's an expensive way to go," Carlson said. He noted that ARPA wants to avoid fatal problems other UAV systems faced in the path, whereby increasing requirements led to spiralling costs and delays caused by numerous redesigns during production.
The question of integrating UAVs is still under consideration, especially linking operations of the medium- and high-altitude vehicles. "[We] are looking at how these things would work together, if there is synergism, if there is complementarity," Rutherford said. He said that no timetable has been established for this integration. Other questions have arisen as to which branch of the armed services will receive the information furnished by the UAVs, as well as who will ultimately control the vehicles themselves.
Already, however, signs of interservice rivalry over UAVs have appeared, as various proposals for UAV deployment appear throughout the armed services. Plans have been forwarded which would utilize UAVs in electronic warfare as jamming devices. A more controversial idea, which the Army recently proposed, would outfit UAVs with interceptors to attack theater ballistic missiles on the launch pad and during the initial boost phase of flight. Carlson said that Army representatives working on the boost-phase intercept program have questioned him about the payload capacity of the Tier II Minus.
Air Force officials have protested the Army's plan, saying it conflicts with the USAF's own boost-phase intercept program. "UAVs are air vehicles," said Capt. Kathleen Cook, USAF, spokesperson for the Air Force. "If they conduct targeting, surveillance, bombing attacks and interceptions in areas far behind enemy lines, the Air Force believes the most effective control and deployment of these forces would be under the air component commander."
USAF has already stated its intentions of fielding a squadron of UAVs, consisting of the HAE vehicles as well as any Predators remaining at the end of the ACTD. Carlson said that the Air Force has written up an operations requirement document. Although, he said, the other branches of the armed services have yet to voice an opinion on the UAV squadron plan, "my suspicion is that the Navy and the Army are still deciding if they like that."
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