By Michael Sirak
Increased reconnaissance and surveillance capability remains the top priority of U.S. combatant commanders for which unmanned aircraft, ground vehicles and maritime systems can play a significant role in addressing current shortfalls, the Department of Defense (DoD) states in a newly released planning document.
“Some form of reconnaissance (electronic and visual) is the number one COCOM [combatant commander] priority applicable to unmanned systems,” reads the Unmanned Systems Roadmap for the period 2007 through 2032 that the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) issued on Tuesday. “Being able to surveil areas of interest while maintaining a degree of covertness is highly desirable.”
OSD publishes the unmanned systems roadmap to support DoD’s goals to field transformational capabilities, establish joint standards, and control costs.
The roadmap states that unmanned systems possess attributes that make them attractive for roles such as reconnaissance and surveillance. Such features include higher survivability, increased endurance and the ability to maneuver at higher G-forces since they do not have a pilot or operator inside of them, the roadmap states. They also can be much smaller in size than manned counterparts, thus presenting more diminutive signatures that make detection more difficult.
These attributes, the document states, apply to the three classes of unmanned systems: unmanned aircraft systems (UAS); unmanned ground vehicles; and unmanned maritime systems [i.e., unmanned surface vehicles and unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs)].
“Because many unmanned systems provide extended persistence, they are ideal candidates for carrying…sensors,” Dyke Weatherington, deputy director of Unmanned Aerial Systems Task Force on OSD’s staff, told reporters Dec. 18 during a briefing in the Pentagon on the roadmap. “We’re not suggesting that only unmanned should carry them. It’s just that by integrating these on an unmanned platform, we get greater persistence. We also get the reduced risk of human life.
“In the case of an IED [improvised explosive device], for example,” he continued, “if you can go explore that IED or that potential IED with an unmanned system, either an airborne system or a ground system, and it happens to be detonated, then we don’t risk the loss of life in doing that.”
Unmanned systems already perform numerous information-gathering and monitoring missions for the DoD and have been invaluable in Afghanistan and Iraq. But efforts need to continue to improve the manner in which they are employed and their data are shared and processed across the services, the roadmap states.
“The reconnaissance mission that is currently conducted by unmanned systems needs to increase standardization and interoperability to gain capability and economic efficiencies across the classes and domains,” the document reads. “Satellites, manned aircraft and submarines, and unattended sensors all have limitations that can be addressed by unmanned systems. Certain efficiencies can be realized when unmanned systems operate together to improve capability with lower costs.”
Weatherington said in many cases unmanned systems may collect worthwhile data, but “because of the limitations that our architectures have, it’s not always discoverable to the broad user base.” Accordingly, he said, one of the roadmap’s main recommendations is for improvements to architectures and methods that make data more discoverable.
“For example, tagging of data, metadata, as it’s sometimes called, to raw information products allows a much broader user base to surf those databases, find that information and then make it more readily accessible to them,” he said.
Beyond reconnaissance and surveillance, the roadmap states that unmanned systems are attractive for meeting COCOM capability gaps in the realms of target identification and designation; countermine warfare; and chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear explosive (CBRNE) reconnaissance. In fact, of the 99 prioritized capability gaps across the Department of Defense, “17 are capabilities that are currently, or could potentially be, addressed by unmanned systems, including two of the top 10,” states the roadmap.
“Finding, fixing, and tagging potential targets is a clear fit for unmanned systems,” the roadmap states when discussing target identification and designation. “The ability to operate in high-threat environments without putting warfighters at risk is a significant advantage when compared to current manned systems. UUVs are already at work in conducting underwater hull and pier inspections, and ground target designation by UASs can significantly reduce the dangers encountered by current ground forces.”
Regarding countermine warfare, Weatherington said, “sea mines have traditionally been the most significant source of damage and death to maritime forces.
Because of the “quintessential” danger of the mission, it “may be the mission area most suitable for unmanned systems,” the roadmap states.
“A significant amount of effort is already being expended to improve the warfighter’s ability to find, tag, and destroy both land and sea mines,” it reads. “The work that ground robots are doing in Iraq to defeat IEDs is saving countless lives. Sea mines represent one of the cheapest and most effective deterrents to unobstructed use of the seas by the fleet and commercial vessels alike.”
As for CBRNE reconnaissance, the roadmap states that it “may be the single most important element of the joint mission to protect the homeland.
“The thought of a successful chemical or biological attack on U.S. shores or deployed forces is unfathomable and could have a significant impact on the U.S. military, economy, and foreign policy,” the document continues. “The ability to find and destroy chemical and biological agents and to survey the extent of affected areas is a crucial effort.”
OSD says it intends to publish a “truly integrated” unmanned systems roadmap in January 2009 that will build on the just-released document and “increases focus on manned and unmanned systems interoperability.”
As part of ongoing activities to improve interoperability, OSD has created an integrated product team for airspace integration, Weatherington said.
“The focus today is primarily airspace integration,” he said. “Now we’re hoping in that activity, we will learn some lessons that allow better integration for surface and maritime activities also. But today the primary focus [is on] airspace integration, airspace among unmanned systems and airspace integration among manned and unmanned systems.
“We believe that is an absolute requirement for unmanned aircraft systems to deliver their full capability,” Weatherington continued. “As many of you know, today there are significant limitations in airspace operations both in military-controlled airspace [that] we typically have in theater today and also in domestic airspace, especially when DoD operates out of special-use airspace.”
The roadmap also defines six overarching goals. The first three are: to improve the effectiveness of COCOM and coalition unmanned systems through improved integration and joint services collaboration; emphasize commonality to achieve greater interoperability among system controls, communications, data products, and data links on unmanned systems; and foster the development of policies, standards, and procedures that enable safe and timely operations and the effective integration of manned and unmanned systems.
The latter three are: to implement standardized and protected positive control measures for unmanned systems and their associated armament; support rapid demonstration and integration of validated combat capabilities in fielded/deployed systems through a more flexible prototyping, test and logistical support process; and aggressively control cost by utilizing competition, refining and prioritizing requirements, and increasing interdependencies (networking) among DoD systems.