Past UAV Program Failures and Implications for Current UAV Programs

Abstract

There has been an increasing interest in the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) among the US armed services over the past 20 years. However, despite over four billion dollars in investment, the services have cancelled numerous development programs and achieved only marginal success with the fielded systems. This research will examine recent Department of Defense (DoD) UAV development efforts and identify common causes for the repeated failure of DoD UAV programs to become operationally robust. Two ongoing UAV development efforts, the RQ-4A Global Hawk UAV Advanced Concept Technology Demonstrator (ACTD) program and the X-45 Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle (UCAV) Advanced Technology Demonstrator (ATD) program, will then be examined for evidence that we are incorporating these lessons learned into our current programs.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Apr 01, 2001
Accession Number
ADA407103

Entities

People

  • Barak J. Carlson

Organizations

  • Air Command and Staff College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Autonomy
  • Ground and Sea Platforms
  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Defense
  • Aircraft Industry
  • Aircrafts
  • Control Systems
  • Department Of Defense
  • Fighter Aircraft
  • Ground Control Stations
  • Laser Target Designators
  • Military Acquisition
  • Procurement
  • Reconnaissance
  • Remotely Piloted Vehicles
  • Signals Intelligence
  • Synthetic Aperture Radar
  • United States Government
  • Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Defense Acquisition Program Management
  • Life Cycle Cost Analysis
  • Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) Autonomous Capabilities and Mission Reconnaissance.

Technology Areas

  • Autonomy
  • Autonomy - UAVs