Comparing Organic vs. Handoff UAV Support to the Maneuver Company
Abstract
The US Army has plans to deploy a dedicated Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) system at every echelon in order to provide responsive support to the battlefield commanders. However, there are disadvantages to fielding such a large number of different and separately controlled vehicles. This research addresses one key part of this issue of selecting the right mix of UAV systems: How shall a company be supported? We consider two alternatives for the company commander, loosely based on systems currently under development: (1) the "Organic" system, which consists of two vehicle-transported VTOL vehicles of ~50 kg each assigned to each company and flying missions when needed; and (2) the "Handoff" system, a 100-200 kg vehicle in the air constantly during operations, maintained and launched at the battalion level, but handed off as needed to the companies, which have Level IV control capability. We focus on performance measures that are strongly affected by the architecture and on finding closed-form approximations that allow extensive sensitivity analysis. We use high-level queuing and Markov chain models to estimate performance. We find that under some circumstances maneuver companies are better served by the "Handoff" system. We also identify performance and scenario parameters that have a strong effect on this and consequently deserve more study. This inquiry originated as a group project given to several teams of cadets taking SE450: Project Management and System Design. Though it was originally purely an academic exercise, the methods and results of several of the teams were of great interest. The authors were inspired to develop the best of the cadets' ideas, adding their own contributions to produce this work. We include in this report some remarks on how well the project worked in helping the cadets understand how to approach a complex systems engineering problem typical of those faced by the Army.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 01, 2007
- Accession Number
- ADA469275
Entities
People
- Robin K. Burk
- Roger C. Burk
Organizations
- United States Military Academy