Supporters of unmanned air vehicles are convinced they are the answer to a host of military problems. But many issues still need to be resolved
Gulfstream is proposing to enter the unmanned air vehicle market. Unlike Northrop Grumman, its competitor for the US Navy's Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) requirement, Gulfstream is putting forward its G550 business jet, albeit one modified to eliminate the need for a crew.
Unmanned systems are the market of the moment. UAV performance in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Yemen has convinced many that they are the answer to every military problem. Others are less convinced, but few would predict a future without pilotless aircraft.
Traditional airframers such as Boeing and Northrop Grumman have sunk significant resources into developing unmanned platforms. Lockheed Martin has joined the latter's Joint Unmanned Combat Air System, and is for the moment in the running for the Unmanned Combat Armed Rotorcraft. In Europe, Alenia, Dassault, EADS and Saab all have programmes. So perhaps it is not surprising that Gulfstream has joined the fray.
The BAMS requirement is the classic description of a job suitable for UAVs. It is intended as an unmanned adjunct to the Multi-mission Maritime Aircraft replacement for the USN's Lockheed Martin P-3C Orions. The role will be long missions to suck up intelligence data out of the ether- the sort of tedious job for which pilots are not well suited.
But there are significant hurdles to be cleared before UAVs climb to the peaks that their most enthusiastic proponents claim they can reach. There are questions of airworthiness, of operations in controlled airspace and over densely populated areas, and of autonomy of action.
One of the biggest issues affecting UAVs is the accident rate. By 2009 the attrition rate is expected to be 20 every 100,000h. Gulfstream is driving for 0.3/100,000h and will no doubt be aided by the safety philosophy already embedded in the basic G550 design.
Reducing the loss rate of UAVs is receiving increasing attention. Once it was of little interest as there is no-one on board to hurt and the UAVs were being operated over empty countryside. But UAVs carry expensive sensor packages and losing them repeatedly is financially unsustainable. UAVs are also no longer limited to the vast empty space of the California or Nevada deserts, or the lonely expanse of a military range.
TheG550 already has equipment such as redundant digital systems and airframe and engine anti-icing that are slowly finding their way on to UAVs. Unfortunately, such systems have a cost and are still regarded too often as a luxury. If UAVs are to have universal acceptance, this attitude will have to change.
As UAVs become more common, they will have to operate with other air traffic. It will no longer be possible to block tracts of airspace and prohibit manned aircraft movements while UAVs take off and land.
Work is under way on collision avoidance systems and equipment to allow UAVs to work in controlled airspace. There has also been preliminary work carried out on writing the necessary airworthiness regulations. Perhaps the work needs a boost to ensure it is available sooner rather than later.
Then there is the question of how autonomous an unmanned platform should be. The target is for UAVs to undergo a mission without human intervention, but that raises the spectre of machines programmed by man, but not controlled by man, killing humans - almost the scenario of films such as Terminator. The likely answer is, of course, that even vehicles able to taxi from a hangar to fly thousands of kilometres to a target, refuel in flight and drop a precision munition at the foot of a sworn enemy will still be equipped with a man-in-the-loop capability. The mix of human oversight and autonomy will depend on the mission and the rules of engagement in place at the time.
In a less doomsday scenario, how much authority to deviate from its planned mission should a platform be allowed? Should a BAMSUAV be able to decide to leave its programmed course to take a closer look at an interesting target? If it does change its own plans, how can the military be assured, and therefore be in a position to assuage the doubts of others, that a UAV that had been flying predictable racecourse orbits at 50,000ft (15,250m) will not descend to a lower altitude and become a menace to other air traffic?
Despite these problems, there is no question of abandoning UAV development - far from it. Don't lose sight of the issues, answer them and the sky's the limit for unmanned air vehicles.
Source: Flight International
