Options for Enhancing the Department of Defense's Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Programs.

Abstract

The Department of Defense spends about $600 million a year on various programs to develop unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Historically, however, the department has had trouble developing and fielding UAV systems. Currently, two UAVs have been deployed or are in production (Pioneer and Predator), and three more are in development (Outrider, Global Hawk, and Darkstar). This Congressional Budget Office (CBO) paper reviews the plans, requirements, and costs for the Department of Defense's UAV programs. It also examines five options intended either to address problems in those programs or to make greater use of UAVs' potential as cheap, unmanned reconnaissance systems. The analysis was requested by the Ranking Minority Member of the Senate Committee on Armed Services. In keeping with CBO's mandate to provide objective and nonpartisan analysis, this paper makes no recommendations.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Sep 01, 1998
Accession Number
ADA361671

Entities

Organizations

  • Congressional Budget Office

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Autonomy
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Aircraft Equipment
  • Aircraft Industry
  • Aircrafts
  • Airframes
  • Artificial Satellites
  • Attrition
  • Battle Damage Assessment
  • Contingency Operations (Military)
  • Laser Target Designators
  • Moving Target Indicator Radar
  • National Security
  • Reconnaissance
  • Reconnaissance Aircraft
  • Surveillance
  • Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Aerial Unmanned Vehicle Swarm Micro Periodontal Dentistry.
  • Economics
  • Government and Public Administration Law.

Technology Areas

  • Autonomy
  • Autonomy - UAVs