UAVs -sensor and shooter?

As far as ADF force planners are concerned, UAVs are here to stay - the trouble is, they haven't actually arrived yet...
Despite studying the technology and operational issues for years, the Australian Defence Organisation has been slow to actually take the plunge and try UAV operations for itself.

An abortive attempt to do so with a Tactical UAV in support of the JP129 risk reduction phase ended prematurely last year when the TUAV selected for the trial crashed after only a couple of sorties.

However, this year's highly successful deployment to Australia by the Northrop Grumman RQ-4A Global Hawk demonstrated the operational potential of a High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) UAV in the maritime and littoral surveillance and reconnaissance roles, and the eventual acquisition of a small fleet of Global Hawk platforms and associated ground control and exploitation systems is now a near-certainty in some analysts' minds.

Thanks to both this year's Global Hawk deployment and several years' experience of operating DSTO's Ingara Capability and Technology Demonstrator (CTD) in the Broad Area Aerial Surveillance (BAAS) role, the ADF is developing the kernel of an operating concept for exploiting efficiently the product of the emerging generation of airborne surveillance assets but the Army in particular remains short of experience in the Focal Area Aerial Surveillance (FAAS) role and of the cost/benefits of employing UAVs in this role.

The various roles a UAV can play are well-enough known: surveillance; reconnaissance; communications relay; signals intelligence-gathering; Electronic Surveillance (ES); Nuclear, Chemical & Biological (NBC) surveillance and recce; and combat - air to surface strike, Suppression of Enemy Air Defences (SEAD) and, potentially, air to air combat.

In simple terms, for any given role the size and configuration of a UAV are the result of a compromise between three often-conflicting requirements: its payload, which in turn defines its weight and size; its need for, or independence of, operating bases, which in turn can constrain the size and so the payload of the UAV; and the level of 'connectivity' required - the more 'product' a surveillance, ES or recce UAV generates, and the more quickly this needs to be disseminated to both formation and unit commanders, the more critical the communications links aboard the UAV and the external communications infrastructure supporting it.

Given the current state of the art in UAV payload, platform and propulsion technology, the smaller a UAV is, the fewer things it can do really well. A TUAV operating out of a bush clearing at relatively low altitude and carrying an electro-optical payload can't scan a large area at any one time or during a complete sortie, so it adds leverage over only a relatively small area to the ground force unit operating it. However, the tactical benefits it affords to that unit may be immense.

A larger UAV with an ESM, Electro-Optical and Synthetic Aperture Radar payload could also deliver an immense benefit to a small unit but, if it can fly higher and scan a larger area and remain aloft considerably longer, its 'product' probably has a much greater operational or strategic benefit. Of course, such a UAV is likely to require a secure and at least semi-permanent launch and recovery site and the volume of data it might generate would in turn require broadband datalinks (probably via satellite) and a large-scale ground station and exploitation facility.

There are graduations along this spectrum of capability, and some interesting niche capabilities also. The Australian Aerosonde is the size of a TUAV, but has an endurance of up to 30 hours and a variety of surveillance and other payloads. It would be ideal for many long-endurance surveillance operations which would otherwise demand the expense of a frequent P-3C Orion or Global Hawk revisit.

Joint Project 2062 - Global Hawk, aims to start acquiring Global Hawk from about 2004 to perform all-weather, long-endurance maritime and land surveillance and reconnaissance. The data generated earlier this year on 12 separate Global Hawk sorties in Australia will inform the development of a concept of operations which will see the system supplement the RAAF's AP-3C Orions in the ocean surveillance roles and provide an all-new broad area land and littoral surveillance capability the ADF has never had before.

JP129 aims to start acquiring a TUAV family in about the same sort of timeframe to provide what the Defence Capability Plan describes as both broad and focal area surveillance, though it talks of a TUAV with a range of up to 150km and a payload of more than 50kg. This month the project office plans to conduct a market survey as the first step towards achieving 'first pass' approval for Phase 2 of JP129 - the acquisition phase - later in the year.

The RAN has started thinking seriously about deployment of shipborne TUAVs, to the extent that naval sources acknowledge the proposed Air Warfare Destroyer will likely have to include provision for hangarage and workshop space to support a TUAV, with a combat system configured to control the TUAV and process, disseminate and exploit its surveillance 'product'. Navy thinking at present also includes the JP129 TUAV family, a natural consequence of the ADF's emerging amphibious warfare capability, while the JP129 project office is also factoring into its plans a possible requirement for a vertical lift system to operate off surface combatants.

On Navy's behalf, DSTO is participating in the NATO NIREUS study to explore future concepts for ship-borne UAVs and the cost/benefits of employing them.

The funding and acquisition of a UAV system remains a knotty problem. A UAV is cheaper to buy and operate than a manned platform in many roles, but most observers agree UAVs will never supplant manned aircraft entirely in any given role. It's unlikely that Global Hawk will cause a reduction in the number of AP-3C Orions operated by the RAAF - instead it will supplement these aircraft and allow them to be tasked more effectively. However, in the longer term the RAAF's exact force mix of manned and unmanned assets will inevitably change. The same is likely to be true of, say, a surveillance TUAV embarked alongside a manned helicopter on a future surface combatant.

So acquiring UAVs won't necessarily save money, or be cost-neutral, in the long run. It may be possible to reduce the financial cost considerably, however, by looking at innovative funding schemes. Any TUAV embarked on a warship or deployed alongside an Army brigade or battalion would probably have to be owned and operated in the traditional way. But any surveillance UAV able to be operated from a secure base with its operations and products able to be configured as a service could be a contender for a PFI-type acquisition.

As radar manufacturer Daronmont Technologies has proposed with its innovative SECAR surface wave radar, a sensor platform able to satisfy the surveillance needs of a range of customers could be made available to each on a fee for service basis at a reduced cost to each customer. This is one of the business models being explored at present by Saab Systems Australia with its Aerosonde investment. Bodies such as Defence, Coastwatch, the Australian Federal Police, the Meteorological organisation, resources companies and other commercial and governmental organisations could all exploit UAV surveillance products of one kind or another but may not be able to justify the cost of acquiring such a system in their own right.

Talk of UAVs frequently drowns out the importance of the supporting ground infrastructure. Unless the UAV's surveillance or reconnaissance product can be disseminated efficiently, or a comms relay UAV can maintain a robust RF link, the system is useless.

There seems little doubt that the maximum benefit from a given UAV is derived from the way in which it is integrated into the command and control system of the organisation which intends to exploit it.

Notwithstanding local developments such as Aerosonde and Mirli, the likelihood is that Australia will acquire most of its UAVs, and some of their vital ground control equipment, from overseas; but configuring and maintaining the appropriate exploitation system is something which can and should be handled within Australia by Australian industry - an issue many specialist firms here are starting to address. For example, Saab and DSTO's Land Operations Division were scheduled to carry out a 'proof of concept' trial earlier this month to demonstrate that imagery gathered by an Aerosonde UAV could be fed into BCSS.

Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles (UCAVs) are also now firmly on the air planners' landscape but only two manufacturers, Boeing and Dassault (see p.xx) have any flight hardware under development at this time. Sending a UAV in harm's way has important implications for things like survivability, security of communications links and embedded C4ISREW equipment, and cost - the more equipment you put on a UCAV, the more often you plan to recover and relaunch the aircraft, the more important survivability and things like a benign launch and recovery environment become.

Command and control, and the ability of a manual controller to override an automatic system, are as valuable for a UCAV as for any guided weapon, especially where the risk of collateral damage is high and rules of engagement are tight. Proposals to control UCAVs from the back seat of a 4th or 5th generation fighter such as the Dassault Rafale or Eurofighter Typhoon have significant implications for the avionics architecture of these aircraft and this needs to be factored into studies being conducted by DSTO and Capablity Systems into likely Air 6000 contenders in the future.

The feel about UAVs within the Australian Defence Organisation is one of inevitability - or, put another way, UAVs are here to stay: they just haven't arrived yet.

By Gregor Ferguson, Adelaide