U.C.A.V.

The objective of the joint DARPA/Air Force Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle (UCAV) Advanced Technology Demonstration (ATD) program is to demonstrate the technical feasibility for a UCAV system to effectively and affordably prosecute 21st century lethal strike missions within the emerging global command and control architecture. The operational UCAV system is envisioned as a force enabler that will conduct Suppression of Enemy Air Defense (SEAD) and strike missions in support of post-2010 manned strike packages. This SEAD/Strike mission will be the first instantiation of an UCAV vision that will evolve into a broader range of combat missions as the concept and technologies mature, and the UCAV affordability potential is realized.

The Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle vision is an affordable weapon system that expands tactical mission options for revolutionary new air power as an integrated part of a system of systems solution. The UCAV weapon system will exploit the design and operational freedoms of relocating the pilot outside of the vehicle to enable a new paradigm in aircraft affordability while maintaining the rationale, judgment, and moral qualities of the human operator. In our vision, this weapon system will require minimal maintenance, can be stored for extended periods of time, and is capable of dynamic mission control while engaging multiple targets in a single mission under minimal human supervision. The UCAV will conduct missions from ordinary airfields as part of an integrated force package complementary to manned tactical and support assets. UCAV controllers will observe rules of engagement and make the critical decisions to use or refrain from using force.

The initial operational role for the UCAV is a "first day of the war" force enabler which complements a strike package by performing the SEAD mission. In this role, UCAVs accomplish preemptive destruction of sophisticated enemy integrated air defenses (IADs) in advance of the strike package, and enable the attacking forces by providing reactive suppression against the remaining IADs. Throughout the remainder of the campaign, UCAVs provide continuous vigilance with an immediate lethal strike capability to prosecute high value and time critical targets. By effectively and affordably performing those missions the UCAV system provides "no win" tactical deterrence against which an enemy's defenses would be ineffective, thereby ensuring air superiority.

As a member of a tightly coupled system of systems, the UCAV will work cooperatively with manned systems and exploit the emerging command, control, communications, computer, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR) architecture to enable successful achievement of campaign and mission level objectives. Intelligence preparation of the battlefield will provide an initial mission/threat database for mission controllers. Controllers will exploit real-time data sources from the theater information architecture to plan for, and respond to, the dynamically changing battlefield. The UCAV will penetrate enemy IADs and external systems such as the Miniature Air Launched Decoy (MALD) will stimulate potential targets. Sensor cueing and off-board targeting can be provided by national systems or airborne assets in real time and/or UCAVs may be part of multi-ship Time Difference of Arrival (TDOA) targeting architectures. The system will create superior situation awareness by leveraging the many sources of information available at both the tactical and theater levels.

Such a UCAV weapon system has the potential to fully exploit the emerging information revolution and provide advanced airpower with increased tactical deterrence at a fraction of the total Life Cycle Costs (LCC) of current manned systems. The government envisions a UCAV Operational System (UOS) air vehicle with unit cost less then one-third of the Joint Strike Fighter, and reduction in total life cycle of 50-80% compared to a current tactical aircraft squadron.

A variety of cost and weight penalties are associated with the presence of a human pilot, including constrained forebodies, large canopies, displays and environmental control systems. The aircraft's maneuver capabilities are limited by the pilots physiological limits such as g tolerance. Removing the pilot from the vehicle eliminates man-rating requirements, pilot systems, and interfaces. The UCAV offers new design freedoms that can be exploited to produce a smaller, simpler aircraft, about half the size of a conventional fighter aircraft. Weighing about one-third to one-fourth of a manned aircraft, at 10,000 pounds they would weigh two to three times more than a Tomahawk missile.

Typically 80 percent of the useful life of today's combat aircraft is devoted to pilot training and proficiency flying, requiring longer design lives than would be needed to meet combat requirements. Without the requirement to fly sorties to retain pilot proficiency, UCAVs will fly infrequently. A reduced maintenance design with condition based maintenance, minimized on-board sensors, reduced fluid systems, maintainable signature, and a modular avionics architecture will reduce touch labor in the fashion of commercial aircraft.

Advances in small smart munitions will allow these smaller vehicles to attack multiple targets during a single mission and reduce the cost per target killed. The Miniaturized Munitions Technology Demonstration (MMTD) goal is to produce a 250-pound class munition effective against a majority of hardened targets previously vulnerable only to 2,000-pound class munitions. A differential GPS/INS system will provide precision guidance, and smart fusing techniques will aid in producing a high probability of target kill.

The DARPA/Air Force/Boeing X-45A technology demonstration aircraft completed its first flight on 22 May 2002. Multi-aircraft testing will begin in 2003 when a second X-45A becomes operational, leading to joint UCAV and manned exercises in FY 2006.

Sources and Resources

THE UCAV CAME OF age during Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan when USAF RQ-1 Predators armed with AGM-114 Hellfire missiles used them against al-Qaeda and Taliban strongholds. It was not the first time UAVs carried and deployed weapons successfully, US Navy TDR-1 unmanned aircraft attacked Japanese shipping off the Solomon Islands with 2,000lb bombs and torpedoes in 1944 and Maverick and Stubby Hobo missiles were test fired successfully from Ryan Firebee UAVs during the 1970s. But Predator operations have moved the debate on from should to when can UCAVs be acquired and deployed.

The assassination of a leading al-Qaeda operative in Yemen with a Hellfire in October 2002, showed UCAV's potential as an anti-terrorist weapon. An advanced Predator B was operated by a US Joint Task Force based at Djibouti in the Horn of Africa on behalf of the CIA that first deployed the GNAT 750, Predator's predecessor, in Bosnia in 1995. Nor was this the first time a UAV had been used to assassinate a terrorist although it was the first to use its own weapon. In November 2000, an Israeli Searcher TUAV was used to shadow Palestine militant Ibrahim Bani-Oudeh travelling in a booby-trapped car lent to him by an informant. The Searcher was used to relay the signal to trigger the car bomb.

During 2002 many US UAVs have been adapted to carry weapons. A TRW/IAI Hunter, the US Army's standard medium-altitude extended-range TUAV, successfully test-fired two Brilliant anti-tank weapons (BAT). The trials used the Northrop Grumman BAT with live warheads as the company prepared its RQ-8A Fire Scout vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) UAV to test-fire the AGM-114 Hellfire. The Fire Scout is on offer to the US Army for its future combat system (FCS) and to the US Marine Corps for a ship-borne mine-detection role. The US Navy has funded five RQ-8As to be based at NAS Fallon in 2004 to help train pilots in UAV operations and is also seeking more funding in 2004 to develop Fire Scout into the multi-mission MQ-8A.

Bell's unsuccessful competitor for the US Navy's VTOL UAV competition, the twin-engine Eagle Eye, is expected to be selected for the US Coast Guard's Deepwater contract for 69 aircraft. This requires an extensive redesign and possibly new engines. The new HV-911 Eagle Eye will be the basis for an unmanned combat armed rotorcraft (UCAR) for the US Army requirement in competition with the Fire Scout.

Another competitor for the US Army FCS to replace the Hunter is the Frontier Systems A160 Hummingbird that has begun a 1,000-hour trial programme before the Army takes over the bulk of funding in 2004. The A160 is expected to carry some form of munitions. Some of these US designs may be considered for programmes in Germany, Japan, Spain, Singapore and the UK where the MoD announced it was accelerating its Watchkeeper UAV battlefield surveillance-system programme and that a new joint-service trials unit was being set up to test prototypes. An assessment phase will reduce the four bidding teams to two.

The trials unit will evaluate the competitors' target acquisition and strike systems and their ability to operate 24 hours a day in all weathers and rapidly re-target. In late 2002, Sir Michael Boyce, the UK Chief of the Defence Staff, told the Defence Select Committee that the MoD was considering adding an armed capability to both its current Phoenix UAVs and to the Watchkeeper programme. Two of the six Phoenix systems, each of nine UAVs, are available for operational deployment at five days' notice and the other four at between 30 and 60 days' notice. None is dedicated to trials although this could change.

Another country contemplating arming its future UAVs is Singapore. Its indigenous Lalee programme for a high- altitude, long-endurance (HALE) UAV is being developed in collaboration with EADS. Although its primary tasks will be strategic surveillance and SIGINT, a weapon-carrying version is possible. EADS is marketing the Global Hawk as the Eurohawk that, with its expanding payload-carrying capability, could become a future cruise-missile carrier.

The first generation of advanced vehicles designed as stealthy UCAVs took to the air in 2002. Dassault and Saab have flown UCAV concept demonstrators, the Petit Duc in 2000 and the Swedish Highly Advanced Research Configuration (SHARC) in February 2002. Although sub-scale designs, they illustrate the type of unmanned systems at the centre of proposed network-centric warfare capabilities.

Sweden plans Net Centric Defence (NCD) to link land, sea and air commands and ultimately individual frontline soldiers using the internet. UAVs will be just one important part of NCD. They will provide real-time battlefield surveillance at the forefront of Sweden's defensive and offensive air capability alongside the JAS Gripen force that will include two-seaters in the C2 role. The US Army and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) have a similar vision of battlefields where the UCAR and the Apache and Comanche, will control and prosecute the operation. Flying FCS demonstrators are expected by 2006.

The race between the US Air Force and Navy UCAV demonstrators was won by the Boeing X-45A UCAV-AF that flew for the first time on 22 May 2002. Designed for the suppression of enemy air defence and specialised attack roles, it was the first of two Spiral 0 X-45As to be followed by three larger Spiral 1 X-45Bs in 2005-6. These will incorporate low observable (LO) apertures and antennae, fully integrated avionics and weapons systems and provision for air-refuelling, leading to an operational A-45. The USAF has a requirement for 14 A-45s for operational evaluation by 2007-8. The X-45A used technology developed for Boeing's X-36 unmanned test vehicle and recently revealed Bird of Prey, a manned technology demonstrator that flew between 1996 and 1999. Boeing is using system commonality between the X-45 and the X-46, its proposed navy UCAV-N that is competing with Northrop Grumman's company-funded X-47A Pegasus.

The role of the LO UCAV-N will be to provide intelligence, surveillance and a strike capability on an aircraft carrier by 2015. Although the X-47A was being prepared for its first flight in mid-2002, this slipped by a year as doubts arose about funding two different vehicles competing for the same programme. After studying submarine-launched UCAV concepts with DARPA, Lockheed Martin proposed an unmanned version of its F-35 joint strike fighter that could be in service soon after the manned aircraft is operational with the US Air Force and navy. Commonality of components, avionics and weapons systems and maintenance would reduce design, development and through-life costs drastically.

This could find support in the UK, an F-35 customer that is considering a UCAV for its Watchkeeper programme, and also moving towards a mix of manned and unmanned platforms for its future offensive air system (FOAS) to replace the Tornado GR.4 in 2017. In August 2002 Defence Minister Lewis Moonie said: "As part of a continuing dialogue with US colleagues, we have discussed the X-45 vehicle but have made no formal assessment of the X-45 nor taken any decisions about developing or acquiring specific unmanned aircraft in relation to FOAS." Just a few weeks later the DPA's FOAS integrated project team awarded two concurrent nine-month studies that will lay the foundation for network-centric C41STAR architecture for the RAF's future strike force.

At the same time BAE Systems Australia began trials of the autonomous navigation and sensing experiment research (ANSER) programme to demonstrate a decentralised data fusion that may be used for future manned and UCAV operations. The technology may be incorporated in the Eurofighter Typhoon Tranche 3 programme, thus providing further evidence that future offensive air warfare could be largely the preserve of unmanned platforms.

Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle (UCAV)

Sources and Resources

Matching Resources with Requirements Is Key to the Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle Program’s Success, U.S. General Accounting Office, June 2003

X-39 / Future Aircraft Technology Enhancements (FATE)