Future Employment of Uavs
Future Employment of Uavs
Future Employment of Uavs
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Future
Employment
of UAVs
Issues of Jointness
By J A M E S R. R E I N H A R D T, J O N A T H A N E. J A M E S , and
E D W A R D M. F L A N A G A N
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Why UAVs?
Wreckage of
Predator UAV,
Bosnia.
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Air Force Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle Advanced Technology Demonstration is intended to
demonstrate the technical feasibility for a man-inthe-loop system. It will be designed to affordably
suppress enemy air defense/strike missions in the
next century within emerging global command
and control architectures. It is envisioned that in
the midterm UCAVs will serve as force enablers by
suppressing enemy air defenses and performing
punitive strike missions in support of manned aircraft. As concepts and technologies mature, UCAV
roles and missions can be expanded.
Two primary development guidelines are
mission effectiveness and affordability. UCAVs
have the potential to significantly reduce acquisition as well as operation and support costs. They
can be manufactured for an estimated one-third
less than manned aircraft, and costs could be cut
by 75 percent. Eliminating the pilot will allow
manufacturers to take advantage of new technologies and designs to build smaller, more affordable systems. Lower operation and support
costs can be achieved since it will no longer be
necessary to maintain pilot proficiency. Simulators will allow UCAV controllers to train and
maintain their skills.
The controller (man-in-the-loop) is key to
UCAV development. Human-system interface is
critical in order to allow the mission control team
the information and control methodology to efficiently operate multiple UCAVs in a dynamic battlespace. 2 The mission control station will be a
no credit
Unmanned surface
vehicle.
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both stealth characteristics and an ability to escape in high-G maneuvers that cannot be
matched by manned aircraft. A single operator
should be able to give orders to many UCAVs that
would operate nearly autonomously, not through
remote teleoperation. Links to off-board sensors,
perhaps fielded by other UAVs, would provide
data to adjust to last-minute battlespace changes.
UAVs have demonstrated their utility, albeit
in support roles rather than frontline combat.
They give the operational commander a reliable
means of reconnaissance in an environment
where space-based or high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft are ineffective because of weather
conditions. Moreover, they can perform missions
in circumstances where political sensitivities or
combat risks preclude the introduction of U.S.
military personnel.
A Joint Future?
While using unmanned systems in combat is
not new, what will be new in the foreseeable future is how such systems are used. Simply possessing a given technology does not suffice to be
truly revolutionary; aircraft carriers, for example,
were in service well before the full implications of
carrier warfare were realized. A truly innovative
approach to employing a new system requires
concurrent doctrinal, organizational, and technological changes that affect planning, equipping,
and training military forces. Development of
UAVs has proceeded along the lines of traditional
Summer 1999 / JFQ
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A first step in developing protocols and doctrine to enable UAVs to meet the challenges of
joint operations is the Tactical Control System,
currently under development and testing. It will
provide the common operating environment and
shared protocols for the Air Force Predator, Army
Hunter, and joint Outrider UAVs. Flight controls
and payload commands will be standardized and
the system will have five levels of scalable interaction, from receipt of retransmitted data
through actual control over launch, recovery,
flight, and payload.
Joint doctrine for UAVs is limited to tactics,
techniques, and procedures that are applicable to
systems in operation (that is, employed on the
tactical level for surveillance and reconnaissance)
and is found in Joint Pub 355.1, Joint Tactics,
Techniques, and Procedures for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. It is outdated and does not reflect the capabilities of current systems, much less those under
development. It views UAVs solely as force multipliers or support vehicles. It also does not address
UCAVs or more advanced surveillance craft.
Much must be done to develop joint doctrine
for UAV operations. Common operating systems
and shared protocols reduce development and
procurement costs by providing economies of
scale. Doctrine can reduce mutual interference
and offer solutions to problems of information
flow. Jointness should not extend to abandonment of traditional areas of responsibility. In sum,
the advantages being sought in joint integration,
including unity of effort and the concentration of
military power at decisive points, should also
guide the employment of unmanned systems.
However, an argument frequently leveled
against jointness is that it overshadows legitimate
approaches to innovation by individual services.
Soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen regard the
battlespace from varied perspectives. It is not the
aim of jointness to eliminate those perspectives,
but rather to draw on their unique qualities to
provide a synergistic, highly integrated, and
seamless fighting mechanism. Joint Pub 355.1
makes that point explicit: care must be taken to
distinguish between distinct but related responsibilities in the two channels of authority to forces
assigned to combatant commands. The military
departments and services recruit, organize, train,
equip, and provide forces for assignment to combatant commands and administer and support
these forces. New UAV systems must be conceived, developed, and provided to the combatant commanders.
Innovation springs from competition among
services for roles and missions, and ultimately for
resources. Each service has proven successful at
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be regarded as elements of a system. It is incumbent on the United States to take the lead in this
area lest it falls prey to an enemy which can capitalize on technology more successfully.
JFQ
NOTES
1 Bruce W. Carmichael, Strikestar 2025, The DTIC
Review, vol. 4, no. 2 (September 1998), p. 1.
2 Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle (UCAV) Advanced Technology Demonstration Solicitation, March 9, 1998, p. 7.
3 F.G. Hoffman, Innovation Can Be Messy, U.S.
Naval Institute Proceedings, vol. 124, no. 1 (January
1998), pp. 4650.
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