Can NATO's drive for a common UAV integration framework succeed? A draft flightplan reveals how the alliance aims to co-ordinate its members' inventories
Within the next two months NATO's Joint Air Power Competence Centre (JAPCC) is to finalise a draft unmanned air vehicle flightplan as part of moves to develop an alliance-wide framework for integration of UAVs into its force structures and future capabilities.
The draft flightplan is intended to support NATO desires to raise co-ordination of UAV capabilities to the same level as that of manned combat aircraft, says Lt Gen Hans-Joachim Schubert, JAPCC executive director and commander of the German air force's air operations command.
There are a large number of different UAV types already in the inventories of individual NATO members. Schubert says: "We see a lot of effort invested in this kind of new technology, but we miss the integrating and co-ordinating role NATO should have - as, for example, we see with manned aircraft.
"This is the basic incentive to really tackle this problem, because in the end unmanned air vehicles and unmanned systems should be regarded in the same way as manned aircraft. They simply have a different role and mission."
Combined inventory
Seventeen NATO members now have around 3,000 UAVs in their combined national inventories and the alliance is readily using them in Kosovo and Afghanistan. Despite this, the development of overreaching co-ordination arrangements for usage, command and control and air traffic integration remain largely undeveloped. Nor is there a central NATO organisation tasked with this role.
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| NATO's plan is to raise co-ordination of UAV capabilities to the same level as that of manned combat aircraft |
"We have to ask ourselves who has the co-ordinating function," says Schubert. "Who in the structure will ensure that you see a co-ordinated and coherent effort in the use of available assets and technologies in the air? This is especially true once you look into the question as even the different services have different views on the employment of unmanned air systems.
"What I see are many, sometimes uncoordinated, activities across the field. What is missing is someone who is generating a common picture so that the different puzzle parts that will be generated and produced by different agencies can be checked to see if those puzzle parts match together and will in the end give a holistic picture of the requirements and on the employment posture of unmanned air systems."
The draft flightplan is intended to be presented to senior NATO officials at a working conference to be held at Kleve in Germany in October. Based on the outcome of those discussions a revised version is expected to be finalised by the end of this year for presentation to NATO's Allied Command Transformation. Once at that level, says Schubert, the flightplan is expected to evolve further to include specific projects handled by a variety of NATO organisations.
JAPCC, located at Kalkar in Germany, on the Netherlands border, operates as NATO's air power think-tank. Depending on final structure of the flightplan and NATO decisions, the centre could have a significant ongoing role in the UAV sector. "I see our work as some sort of facilitator role," says Schubert. "First of all, someone has to take the lead to bring the different parties around the table, and then we have to exchange our different and maybe our opposing requirements - look for ways to bridge the gap."
The draft UAV flightplan is focused on the top-level problems facing the integration of UAVs into NATO force structure, and will necessarily provide only a starting point rather than a fully developed roadmap akin to that produced by the US Department of Defense, says Schubert.
"Before you start to run you should be able to walk, so what we have to do first is identify available capabilities, then we have to ask ourselves how could those capabilities be integrated in the NATO system. What kind of operational plans are needed? What kind of procedures are needed? What needs to be done to really get these things operational, in the air? And lastly, what kind of force structures do you really need to do this?" Schubert says.
"We have to place emphasis on the operational framework to start with. We have then to adjust this operational framework in accordance with the evolving situation in which we would like to use those capabilities and assets. This will vary by mission, theatre, scenario, risk perception and a couple of other parameters and factors. There we should abstain from the detail. We have to produce the common picture - common ground work - from which we could then operate in the alliance."
He adds: "Once we have done this - and this is the ground work - then we could go into more detail. Once we have presented the flightplan to Allied Command Transformation, we will certainly take the opportunity to identify areas of high priority and break down issues for further work, or for further co-ordination and calibration."
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| Germany's Eurohawk is among projects that have helped the push towards co-ordination |
Forward looking
However, the initial draft to go to conference in October will contain a significant amount of forward-looking detail. "Our flightplan should outline the required capabilities, the capability gaps, and the shortfalls. Further, from a JAPCC perspective it will recommend courses of action - how to integrate unmanned air system capabilities and other key enablers for allied command operations and subordinated commanders in support of joint and combined operations."
While providing a top-level view of UAV technologies, Schubert says, "we will stay away from all hardware-related issues because hardware is not our primary concern. We are not living with a white sheet of paper. We have certain fielded capability throughout the nations and now the task is to find a mechanism to really bind those capabilities together in such a strand that, at the end NATO, has something similar at hand as what we have with manned aircraft."
In the immediate and mid-term, Schubert says, "we should assist in providing concepts of operations, recommendations and requirements - doctrinal recommendations. In the long term it is intended to assist NATO, and indirectly through the defence requirements review process, national decision makers in developing a strategy for unmanned air system development and acquisition."
That long-term element of the plan would also provide the connection mechanism with national armament agency acquisitions and any potential future alliance capability initiatives.
Current NATO activities such as the Alliance Ground Surveillance programme and Germany's Eurohawk project have helped crystallise awareness within the alliance of the need for improved co-ordination, says Schubert, particularly with respect to "airspace co-ordination, sense- and-avoid issues, and airworthiness certifications."
NATO should not be looking to duplicate extensive efforts on UAV airspace integration already under way, he argues, particularly in the European context, but should ensure that it is an effective partner in the dialogue leading up to standardised international arrangements.
Civil duplication
"We shouldn't duplicate the effort and we shouldn't intervene in the work of the civil agencies, which certainly are stakeholders in this respect," says Schubert. "But once they have produced certain ideas and procedures, at least from a military standpoint of view, we have to look into these questions with subject-matter expertise. It may be that we need certain adjustments. It may be that we could advise them to reconsider certain ideas."
But Schubert says that as a starting point, "we have to identify problems of airspace control. Secondly, we have to say what needs to be addressed and what needs to be solved in regards to those problems. Maybe by level of priority? And then we have to ask ourselves who could be the right partner to do this and who or what is the right way to really engage this problem.
"Once this is identified, he adds, then maybe we have a package of 30-40 items and then, together with Allied Command Transformation, we have to develop some plan on who is going to do what".
Source: Flight International
