Global Security and Intelligence Studies Volume 1, Number 1, Fall 2015 | Page 18

The Future of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
Conclusion
The evolution of UAVs will be exciting to watch. Advances in technology present
a multitude of options for innovation of UAVs for military operations. Yet, just
because a UAV can do a function does not mean that it will be adopted for that
function. Many of the advances in UAV technology require additional advances in
power, communications, electronic protection, and/or miniaturization to make them
fully functional in an operational environment. This is a dramatic increase in expense
that most militaries are unlikely to take until costs are significantly reduced. Those
countries that do invest in state-of-the-art UAVs will have difficulties producing them
in quantities desired by the warfighter.
Increases in automation are likely to enable the proliferation of more
vehicles without requiring additional manpower. Fully automated UAVs, though,
are likely to be limited to combat support roles, not the employment of lethal force.
Even with advancements in radar, target discrimination, weapons, and defensive
countermeasure, the decision to employ lethal force is not likely to be delegated to
the automated platform. While an automated UAV may employ lethal force, it will be
at the direction of a manned command and control platform.
Advancements in UAVs to survive in advanced air defense and electronic
warfare environments face significant challenges. New UAV technologies such as
nanotechnology and neuroscience will thrive in the irregular warfare environment,
but are a long way from use in a conventional war. Reduced observability and a small
forward footprint will enable more and more countries to engage in low priority,
low visibility missions that they would normally assign to another instrument of
national power such as diplomacy or economic manipulation. Efforts to make UAVs
survivable in a high air defense threat environment via the creation of UAV swarms
or large fleets of stealth UAVs increase the cost exponentially. There are perhaps a
half dozen countries in the world that could afford such a venture. However, it would
require serious tradeoffs in other military equipment, which is not likely in the near
future.
The corresponding overhead costs in training for pilots, sensor operators
and maintainers, fuel and spare parts, maintenance, and communications are not
cheaper than manned alternatives. Advances in ISR will increase manpower costs as
each additional sensor will require additional processing and exploitation capacity.
Alternatively, the future is likely to see a proliferation of low-cost, non-survivable,
small UAVs. These small UAVs have a much small cost footprint since there is no
communications cost. Perhaps most important is the low manpower cost: a single
individual acts as pilot, sensor operator, maintainer, launch and recovery, and as
transporter. The use of these small UAVs will continue to expand into nontraditional
ISR missions, irregular warfare, and disputed territory monitoring.
The large UAV’s advantages in loiter time and target discrimination give
it tremendous advantages over manned aircraft for some mission sets. Fully
autonomous air-to-air and air-to-ground combat UAVs are unlikely. More likely is
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