Global Security and Intelligence Studies Volume 1, Number 1, Fall 2015 | Page 14

The Future of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
Advanced ISR UAVs
Along with additional loiter times, new UAVs will carry multiple sensors
increasing the load for sensor operators. One DARPA project claims to
use more than 300 mini-sensors to create 65 video feeds. While this is an
incredible increase in capability, these developments will entail significant costs
in manpower and bandwidth. Adoption of this technology will naturally lead to
additional emphasis on automated sensor operations. A semiautomated UAV could
certainly conduct a significant portion of preplanned and ad-hoc ISR collection
including still imagery photographs, communications intelligence, electronic
intelligence, and some specialized measuring and signals intelligence. Programming
a UAV to track mobile targets using full motion video would certainly be more
complex, but is in the realm of the possible.
Arguably, the proliferation of small, inexpensive UAVs could lead to the
adoption of UAVs to do other functions such as tactical weather forecasting, base
security, and nuclear, biological, and chemical detection. While expanding situational
awareness for these tasks, this expansion creates additional DOTMLPF development
in order to avoid overloading the existing UAV system. On the technology side,
improved communications will be necessary to handle the additional bandwidth
requirements. On the personnel side, semiautomated intelligence processing, data
storage, and video search capabilities will be necessary for the intelligence community,
which is already overwhelmed with data from existing sources. The military R&D
community continues to explore methods to automate the intelligence fusion process.
While automated systems helped with data integration and visualization, the heavy
lifting of intelligence fusion is still dependent on the gray matter. Meanwhile, this
proliferation of many UAVs presents an opportunity to create extended networks.
UAVs could act as sensor and relay nodes for air-to-air surveillance, air-to-ground
surveillance, electronic surveillance, and communications.
Mobility, Strike, and Command: A Mixed Bag for Future UAV Missions
To make an adoption of a massive fleet of small UAVs feasible, new UAVs will
need to be logistics conscious. The concept of a single pilot flying multiple
UAVs is one method to reduce the logistical burden. More importantly,
the UAVs will need to reduce their footprint downrange. Perhaps this will involve
maintenance robots using a three-dimensional printer for spare parts. On the
other hand, UAVs may be part of the logistics solution. Using UAVs to haul cargo
is a relatively simple venture as long as the aircraft can be made reliable enough
to minimize risk of losing the cargo. A proven safety record would also likely lead
to adoption for UAVs for air-to-air refueling. Fully autonomous mobility aircraft
are intriguing because they represent tremendous manpower savings. Besides, UAV
transports would be especially useful for high-risk cargo delivery missions such as
airdrops near enemy forces and firefighting. In Afghanistan, the Marine Corps used
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