Future Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Roberto M. Rodriguez

IBSN: 978-1-105-12672-7

Future Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Table of Contents

Future Unmanned Aerial Vehicles 0

PURPOSE OF THE PAPER 0

I - BACKGROUND INFORMATION 0

II – REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE 2

CONCLUSIONS 7

REFERENCES 9

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 12

PURPOSE OF THE PAPER

This paper will review the literature about present capabilities and limitations of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), describe some of the major characteristics of each major vehicle, and attempt to project what kind of UAVs will be developed within the next 10 years. In other words, an attempt will be made to forecast the next generation of unmanned aerial vehicles given the present constraints in technology, cost, and other factors.

I - BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles or UAVs are known by many different names, such as remotely piloted vehicle, robot plane, pilotless aircraft, drone, and many others. The Department of Defense (DOD) definition is that they are “powered, aerial vehicles that do not carry a human operator, use aerodynamic forces to provide vehicle lift, can fly autonomously or be piloted remotely, can be expendable or recoverable, and can carry a lethal or nonlethal payload.” [1] As recently as in the first years after the fall of Baghdad, drones “were little more than a cool toy or a battlefield accessory” [2] but today they are an important and integral part of our military capabilities.

Those vehicles vary a lot in size. They range from the size of an insect to that of a commercial airliner capable of delivering heavy bombs or missiles and their two main advantages is that they are considered more cost-effective than manned airplanes and that they minimize the risk to a pilot’s life. Some of the lighter models, of up to about four pounds, are hurled into the air by soldiers on the ground. [3] However, UAVs are much more likely to have accidents and their accident rate is one hundred times that of manned aircraft. [4] In April 2006, an unmanned aircraft (a Predator B) crashed in Arizona. The accident was caused by the ground-based pilot’s failure to use checklist procedures to safely operate the aircraft.” [5]

Unmanned aerial vehicles can be combined with global positioning systems to track enemy movements, detect land mines, and scout potential routes and they are being widely used in Iraq for these purposes. These UAVs are revolutionizing warfare by keeping more US soldiers out of direct combat and providing valuable strategic information.

II – REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

The most popular and well-known unmanned aerial vehicles are the Predator, the Reaper, the Raven, the Sky Warrior and the Global Hawk.

The Predator

As of May 2008 the Air Force has declared to have 102 Predators in stock and more in order. These robot planes are capable of carrying out surveillance and of delivering missiles at specific targets while under the control of pilots located thousands of miles away, usually in the United States. These vehicles are capable of carrying munitions of up to 450 pounds and usually are equipped with two-laser guided Hellfire anti-tank missiles[6]. They cruise at about 85 mph and have a maximum speed of 130 mph[7]. Its cruising range is 400 miles and its maximum altitude is 25-30,000 feet, but sometimes it flies closer to the ground as low as 1,000 feet [8]. It is equipped with color video camera, infrared camera for night vision and radar which can see through clouds and smoke. It is a difficult target both for ground fire and airplanes, but a significant number have been shot down by enemy fire or have crashed – about one out of every eight deployed. Predators’ remote control crews basically have worked 13 hours day six days a week without a break over 3 years. [9]

Each Predator is controlled by a two-person crew: the pilot, typically an Air Force pilot trained in conventional aircraft, who flies the drone, and a controller who oversees the surveillance. [10] The US air force has deployed the Predator B to Iraq, where it can use Hellfire missiles against targets.

The Reaper

This is a larger version of the Predator and is capable of flying at about 300 mph and higher at about 50,000 feet. [11] Its payload is larger: 14 Hellfire missiles or four Hellfire and two 500-bombs [12]. They are comparable to an A-10 attack plane (36 feet long and 66-foot wingspan) and are regarded as the next generation after Predator[13].

The Raven

Ravens are about the size of large model airplanes, with a wingspan of three feet 38 inches. [14] They are battery operated, can fly up to an hour on a charge and are made of Kevlar and Styrofoam, weighting four pounds and cost about $ 35,000, about 1/20th the price of the Predator. [15] Army units searching and fighting house-to-house in Iraq and Afghanistan are using hundreds of drones, some of them as small as a model airplane (the Raven) to track enemy movements. [16] Army drones alone flew more than 46,450 hours in March 2003 in the war in Iraq. [17]

The Sky Warrior

The Sky Warrior is designed for both surveillance and attack. It can fly up to 30 hours at a stretch and at altitudes up to 29,000 feet, and carries four Hellfire missiles. [18] According to the website of General Atomics Aeronautical, the manufacturer, the Sky Warrior has “redundant flight controls, dual-redundant automatic takeoff and landing, Tactical common data link (TCDL) over the horizon satellite communications, TCDL air data relay communications, system operational availability over 90%, displacement/emplacement in less than two hours and is C-130 transportable.” [19] The same source says that its wing span is 56 feet; its length 28 feet and its maximum takeoff weight 3,200 pounds. [20]

The Global Hawk

Of the great collection of UAVs that have been developed in the last few decades, the largest and most expensive is the Global Hawk. It flies autonomously from takeoff to landing and in any weather. It can fly at a very high altitude up to 65,000 feet, has a long endurance, and provides near-real time imagery of large geographical areas. [21] It has been called “the theater commander’s around-the-clock presence over the battle space, giving military commanders a persistent source of high quality imagery.” [22] It has been called “high altitude, long-endurance” surveillance aircraft and has a range of almost 14,000 miles [23]. Its wingspan is 115.8 feet, length 15 feet, and is capable of prolonged loitering time up to 42 hours [24]. However, it is only a surveillance plane because it carries no armaments.

A prototype of this vehicle made its first trans-Pacific flight when it flew from California to Australia on April 22-23, 2001. [25] It was also used in Afghanistan as an experimental vehicle, flying more than 50 missions and 1,000 combat hours, and providing more than 15,000 images to support the conflict. [26] Unfortunately, two of these aircraft were lost during missions supporting operations in Afghanistan, one because of an engine failure and another due to an improperly installed bolt on the air vehicle, although these assets are still be used for testing and training.[27]

The first Global Hawk was delivered in September 2003, but these vehicles have become more and more sophisticated, as additional features are constantly being added to the new vehicles coming out of the production line. Production plans call for the Air Force to buy 51 Global Hawks, being purchased at the rate of 4-7 aircrafts per year, until the final five are delivered in 2011. [28] However, these added capabilities are causing concern about the rising costs of an already expensive UAV system.

The planned cost for each of these aircraft was set up initially at $ 48 million per unit cost, but research and development costs have increased the price of the latest units to as high as $ 73 million. [29] The latest reported figures has set its average cost at $ 57 million, and this figure takes into consideration “all air vehicles, sensors, mission control elements, launch and recovery elements, spares, and associated equipment.” [30]

Greater cost means that the asset becomes more valuable and thus not expendable as other UAVs. In the report accompanying the FY03 Authorization Act, the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence mentioned their concerns about the management and cost growth of the Global Hawk Program, saying that “changes to the air vehicle have made the platform expensive to risk losing.” [31] The report further mentioned that “what was once a $ 10 million air vehicle, has become at least a $ 30-40 million aircraft, and the cost will increase substantially further as additional and improved sensors, and corresponding power/payload upgrades, are added.” [32]

CONCLUSIONS

The UAVs are here to stay. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has expressed that UAVs will continue to be an important element in American tactics against terrorists and has ordered a rapid increase in their numbers. Pentagon plans include a substantial increase in the UAVs fleet, including the more expensive and larger drones with greater endurance and larger payloads. The 2008 Defense Department budget allocated almost $ 900 million to build five Global Hawks, $ 70 million to build 300 Ravens ( a small UAV launched by hand by soldiers on the ground for immediate battlefield surveillance) and a further $ 700 million to buy two dozen Predators, four Reapers and 12 Sky Warriors, as well as for further research. [33] In the longer term the Air Force has projected spending $ 13 billion over five years to acquire 241 drones including Predators, Global Hawks and Reapers. [34] A December 2007 Defense Department paper titled ‘Unmanned Systems Roundup’ said that “tasks such as mine detection, signal intelligence, precision target designation, chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, explosive reconnaissance; and communications and data relay” were of special long term interests [35].

The new generation of UAVs will not attempt to do everything as some of the more sophisticated present models, but will consist of smaller vehicles, each specialized for a different function. This change will be motivated because of increasing research and development costs, the poor state of the American economy, and a policy probably tending to decrease the military role of the United States in the world.

Obviously, the UAVs of the future also will be more technologically sophisticated. The US Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency is working on UAVs that can physically reconfigure themselves in flight.” [36] Some will have advanced synthetic aperture radars, [37] such as the Smart-Eye, an unmanned aerial vehicle developed by Adcom which will be launched this year at the International Defense Exhibition in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. [38]The Smart-Eye has a wingspan of 21 meters and has an embarked weight of 1.2 tones and an endurance of 120 hours. [39]

Future UAVs also will have increased defensive capability and will be able to hide from enemy fire. Engineers at Israel’s Techno University are developing tiny electrically conductive fibers that could be used to defend aircraft from missile attacks. These particles, electrically charged fiberglass pieces are fired from the aircraft and swamp enemy radar with multiple readings to confuse the radar. [40] They will be used to deter radar-guided missiles that go after the electrical component of an aircraft.

UAVs will be used in a larger number of operations, such as in rescue operations, something that is being already widely used in Europe. [41] Increased sharing of information will become the norm, so that “regardless of who is flying, everyone ought to have access to the data.” [42] The same source, referring specifically to the situation in Iraq mentioned that “on any given day in the skies over Iraq, there may be airplanes staked up from 2,000 feet all the way up to 22,000 feet in 500 or 1,000 foot increments.” [43] However, for this sharing of information to occur more communications satellites are needed. The US Defense Department’s push to send more and more unmanned aerial vehicles is exacerbating a shortage of communication satellite resources. [44]

It is expected also that drones will become commercially available. Drones of all sizes eventually will win approval by federal air safety regulators to operate unhindered in the National Airspace System. The era of the unmanned aerial vehicles has just started.

REFERENCES

Air Safety Week. (2007). Unmanned aerial vehicles won’t go away. Vol. 21, Issue 42, p. 9.

Air Safety Week. (2008 Nov) UAVs to the Rescue. Vol. 22, Issue 43, p. 6.

Armada International. (2004). Drones with synthetic eyes. Jun/Jul. Vol. 28, Issue 3, p. 82-88.

Background Information Summaries. (2008). Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (Drones), p. 5

Barry, John; Evan, Thomas; Nordland, Rod; Samuels, Lennox; Hussan, Al; Moreau, Ron and Yousafzai, Dami. Up in the Sky, an unblinking eye. Newsweek, June 9. 2008, Vol. 151, Issue 23, p. 24-29.

Best, Richard A. Jr., Bolkom, Christopher. (2003). Airborne Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance: The U-2 Aircraft and Global Hawk UAV Programs. CRS Report RL 30727, December 1.

Covert/Paramilitary Ops Secret Military Intelligence. http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/daro/jtaannex/anxtoc.html (accessed Feb 6 09).

FAS. (2003). Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: Background and Issues for Congress. Report to Congress RL 31872. http://www.fas.org/irp/crs/RL31872.pdf (accessed Feb 7 09).

GAO. (2004). Improved Planning Can Enhance DOD’s Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Efforts. Government Accounting Office, 03-18-2004. http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d0595t.pdf (Feb 03 09).