Surveillance: UAVs OK for NW Shelf surveillance

1 May 2007

By Tom Muir

Last year's UAV trials, real-world and simulated, have confirmed the utility of employing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in a maritime surveillance role to help protect Australia's North West Shelf area.

Three years ago the Government said it planned to invite General Atomics (manufacturer of the Predator/Mariner UAVs) and Northrop Grumman (Global Hawk) to participate in an Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) trial over the NW Shelf region to demonstrate the potential of their UAV technology for maritime surveillance.

Following initial negotiations with both companies it was decided that there would be a real world trial involving the Mariner and a separate modelling and simulation trial of Global Hawk. This last would be undertaken at Northrop Grumman's Cyber Warfare Integration Network (CWIN) capability that would also demonstrate the utility of the Global Hawk UAS for maritime surveillance.

While the primary aim of the NW Shelf NWS UAS Trial was to demonstrate a joint integrated surveillance capability for the protection of the NW Shelf region, the trial also provided the opportunity to gain an understanding of the technology required to support the acquisition of a multi-mission UAS capability under Defence Project Air 7000 Phase 1.

This Phase seeks to acquire High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) UAS for maritime patrol and other surveillance, both systems are candidates for the Air 7000 requirement.

The original policy announcement specified the objectives of the trial as being to assess the maritime surveillance potential of UAS operating with Armidale Class Patrol Boats in protecting the NW Shelf and other maritime environments.

A secondary objective was to provide data to support the acquisition of a multi-mission UAS under AIR 7000 Phase 1. As part of the development of trial plans, these broad objectives were transformed in to three critical operational issues that were to be addressed by the trial. These were:

Surveillance - what is the capability of the UAS to perform maritime surveillance in support of protection of the NW Shelf?

Response - what is the capability of the UAS to operate supported by, or in support of, the Armidale Class Patrol Boat (ACPB) to mount an effective and timely response to a detected or suspected threat of transgression?

Australian Environment - is the UAS able to operate remotely in the Australian climatic, regulatory, information, geographic and logistics environment?

Mariner trial
The real world trial involving the Mariner Demonstrator UAS included a series of flights from RAAF Edinburgh (SA) and RAAF Learmonth (WA) during August and September 2006. The UAS ground station that provided mission control was located at RAAF Edinburgh.

The Adelaide class patrol boat HMAS Pirie supported the trial sorties, enabling an investigation of how these assets should interact during the conduct of maritime surveillance operations.

Following shakedown flights at Edinburgh, the Mariner transited to Learmonth for the NW Shelf region flights. The five RAAF Learmonth flights involved a range of surveillance related activities including employment of the UAS to:

* Perform maritime surveillance in a 240 x150 nm search box in the NW Shelf region

* Provide persistent maritime surveillance

* Undertake altitude excursions for close-up imagery of contacts

* Detect, classify and identify maritime contacts of interest

* Handover contact monitoring between the UAS and a manned Coastwatch aircraft

* Vector patrol boat towards a contact of interest, and provide sensor imagery directly to the patrol boat, supporting the planning and conduct of their boarding operations

* Provide sensor imagery directly to elements of the Army, during episodes of land/littoral surveillance activities to assist with the conduct of their response operations

According to General Atomics, during the 29-day trial, the Mariner flew over 75 hours at altitudes ranging from 1,000 to 40,000 feet and was equipped with a maritime surface search radar (EDO's Sea Watch Maritime Patrol Radar, originally developed by ELTA as the EL/M-2022(V)3 radar), an electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) camera system and Automatic Identification System (AIS).

The aircraft's 22-hour endurance flight included both high- and low-altitude operations, with three altitude excursions conducted from 35,000 to 40,000 feet down to 1,000 feet.

The virtual trial involved simulation of similar NW Shelf scenarios as those addressed by the real world trial. However, the virtual trial enabled further investigation of circumstances (such as particular weather or sea state conditions) that were constrained by the actual conditions encountered during the real-world trial. Simulations were run over a 10-day period in October 2006.

The simulation serials were able to demonstrate how a Global Hawk-based UAS might be used to undertake a range of maritime surveillance tasks within the NW Shelf region similar to those performed by the Mariner.

The benefits of being able to conduct a large scale simulation to assess UAS operations under varied weather conditions, under complex threat conditions, and with the freedom to explore a wider range of situations and conditions were considerable.

In particular, the virtual trial provided an opportunity for rapid exploration of new tactics and procedures in a wide range of scenarios and environmental conditions.

Additionally, this type of activity was not impacted by some of the overheads associated with real-world aviation operations (for example, logistic support requirements, or transit time to trials area of operations). However, these considerations are always part of the complex mix required to deliver real-world capability.

The virtual trial provided insights into some particular system issues (for example, options for employment of the satellite communications link or the functionality provided by the operator workstations) as well as on issues related to the more general UAS concept of operations.

The Human-in-the-Loop aspect of the simulation activity provided an opportunity for current military maritime patrol and attack operators who had been involved in the real world trial activity to bring that experience to bear within the CWIN virtual trial activity. This enabled these operators to rapidly refine the employment concepts during early phases of the simulation activity.

The two elements of the NW Shelf Trial both successfully demonstrated the extent to which UAS technology could contribute towards protection of the NW Shelf region.

Each trial activity was tailored to address the primary trial objectives and the critical operational issues, with the involvement of military and civilian organisations and operators adding to the range of lessons and issues that were identified. Both activities will inform future Commonwealth consideration of UAS technology to maritime surveillance operations.

End note: The source for this article was the excellent DSTO trials report: North West Shelf Unmanned Aerial System Trial, by Duncan Craig, IS&R Division, DSTO, Edinburgh, SA, February 2007. (DSTO-TR-1958).