JP 129 market survey kicks off stately acquisition process

Joint Project 129 has passed an important milestone, but it will still be several years before the release of an RFT and the acquisition of a solution.
The ADF has moved a step closer to the acquisition of a fleet of Unmanned Air Vehicles under Joint Project 129 with the launch in August of a market survey of current and merging UAV systems.

Manufacturers of UAVs and surveillance payloads had until September 28 to provide the Defence Materiel Organisation (DMO) with details of UAV systems and components such as sensors and data links which meet Australia's requirements, along with indicative costings, the DMO's JP129 project manager, WGCDR Ken Crowe, told ADM.

The ADF plans to acquire a fleet of Tactical UAVs (TUAV), worth up to $150 million, in about 2005 under Joint Project 129, said Crowe. The market survey will provide the ADF with essential planning and costing data it can put before the Defence Capability Investment Sub-Committee in December this year, he said. The DCISC's role is to provide detailed guidance to force planners on the key functional requirements of the systems and ensure that a realistic range of options is considered. Year of Decision for acquisition of the TUAVs under Phase 2 of JP129 is 2003/04.

Last year's Defence White Paper committed the ADF to fielding an operational TUAV system from 2007, Crowe said, so deliveries of production air vehicles, ground control stations and training equipment to the Army will likely begin in 2005 or 2006. The 10-year Defence Capability Plan released by defence minister Peter Reith in June allocates up to $150 million to the acquisition of the TUAV system.

Under JP129, the ADF's could field up to three TUAV systems, each consisting of a ground control/imagery analysis and exploitation station and several UAVs. The Defence White Paper calls for the ability to sustain a brigade-size force deployed on operations for extended periods by rotating the Army's three regular brigades in succession through the operational area. Under JP129, said Crowe, each Brigade could be equipped with its own TUAV system, so providing permanent UAV coverage of a given area of operations.

The TUAV would be equipped with video and infra-red cameras and a datalink to transmit imagery in real time to the ground station. But the ADF would also welcome a synthetic aperture radar sensor, if cost and payload weight considerations allow, said Crowe, and the ability to transmit data direct to units in the field, by-passing the ground control station where necessary. The ADF may also install electronic warfare payloads on its UAVs in the future.

A high-low mix consisting of a medium-sized UAV with greater endurance and payload operating in partnership with a family of smaller TUAVs may also meet the ADF's requirements, Crowe said - this is what the market survey is designed to help establish. A larger UAV that is still able to operate from a tactical base could carry more sensors, cover a wider area and also perform other functions such as providing a communications relay capability. This would still, however, be smaller and more modest in capability than the Northrop Grumman RQ-4A Global Hawk, which the ADF is considering buying under a separate program, JP 2062. But there would likely be a need for Global hawk and the Army's TUAV family to be able to interoperate at some level, Crowe told ADM.

The RAN is also studying the UAV issue closely, but this is unlikely to impact on JP129. The Navy has begun developing a concept of operations for UAVs permanently embarked on both warships equipped with helicopter flight decks and larger auxiliaries. At this early stage it seems likely that the RAN will seek mature UAV technologies to reduce some of the inherent risks involved in launching and recovering from a small flight deck - this is acknowledged by the UAV community to be a much more demanding operational environment than land-based operations.

The JP129 project office had considered the possibility of a 'Proof of Concept' trial of a representative TUAV system in about 2003. ADM understands from defence sources that this is an unlikely prospect owing to a shortage of resources and personnel within both the project office and the Army to conduct such a trial under the circumstances and with the rigour it demands.

It's early days for the industry players, but Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) will respond to the market survey, according to Nissim Elad, manager of the company's Canberra-based Australian liaison office. The company has three subsidiaries producing UAVs, electro-optical sensors and synthetic aperture radars and all three - IAI Malat, IAI Tamam and IAI ELTA Electronics, respectively - may submit parallel responses.

IAI Malat deployed a complete Hunter UAV system to northern Australia to support Army trials in 1993. This was inconclusive, owing partly to the Army's relative ignorance then about UAV operations and partly also to the lack of an integrated infrastructure able first to cue a reconnaissance UAV onto a likely target and then to exploit the resulting imagery and intelligence product efficiently.

IAI Malat manufactures both mid-range and long-range TUAVs; teamed with EADS, the company has sold the biggest of these, the Heron, to the French department of defence under the name Eagle 1. The Heron could form the upper end of a 'high-low mix' of TUAVs under JP129. However, Australia's requirement may be able to be met with only a mid-range TUAV such as the Hunter or Searcher 2, Elad believes. The latter is now equipped with IAI ELTA's EL/L-2055 synthetic aperture radar.

Similarly, American UAV manufacturer AAI Corp will likely submit a response to the market survey, according to Gerry Bluett, managing director of the company's Melbourne-based Australian subsidiary. AAI manufactures a range of TUAVs of different sizes for the US Army, Navy and Marines, and could offer an integrated family of UAV products to the ADF, he said. Currently it is building the Shadow 200 for the US Army which plans to acquire a total of 44 systems (each consisting of two ground control stations, four remote receiver stations and three aircraft) worth up to $500 million over the next five years, according to AAI sources.

AAI will likely also offer the Shadow 200 for the Australian Army's production contract, but the company has speculated in the past that Australia may also need a small force of larger Shadow 600 TUAVs with an endurance of 12-14 hours, compared with the 200's 5-6 hours, in order to provide far wider coverage of Australia's outback.

Like the IAI Malat Heron, the Shadow 600 could form the high-end element of a 'high-low mix' family of TUAVs offered by AAI.

AAI's response to this initial market survey represents an opportunity to share some US experience of operating TUAVs and develop a mechanism to adapt US tactics and doctrine to Australian needs and conditions, Bluett said. Noting that the Army has very little direct in-country experience of operating TUAVs (a trial last year involving the Canadair CL-214 'Flying Peanut' was curtailed when the aircraft crashed after only a couple of sorties), he pointed out that only the US and Israel have extensive operational experience of using TUAVs and tapping into that experience would significantly mitigate the risks on Australia's part associated with acquiring and operating TUAVs for the first time.

By Gregor Ferguson, Adelaide