Communications and Intelligence Support for Unmanned Aircraft Systems in 2020: A Looming Hollow Force?

Abstract

The age of the unmanned aircraft (UA) has arrived. Given their tremendous success in supporting combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, UAs are no longer a novelty item within the Department of Defense (DoD). As most DoD "insiders" will attest, the true indicator of a program's success is its funding level. If that is true, UAs are very successful and what one U.S. Air Force general officer called a "growth industry." Research and development funding alone has increased on the order of 700 percent. USAF General William T. Hobbins believes the tremendous growth of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) is attributable to the increasing number of missions, many of them nontraditional, UAs are capable of accomplishing. Beyond traditional intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance (ISR) missions are missions such as digital mapping and day/night strike. "Certainly in the future of unmanned aircraft systems, there are more missions out there; we just haven't figured them out yet." By 2020, the DoD is estimating that these future missions will include such complex tasks as aerial refueling and suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD). In the rush to embrace this new capability, defense officials must ask a key question. Is the DoD (and more specifically are the individual services) truly prepared to support the dramatic increase in UA operations? An examination of DoD and service UAS acquisition plans reveals that there are two areas, if not appropriately addressed, that will ultimately result in a degradation, not an increase, in future UAS capabilities to support the warfighter. These areas are intelligence analysis and communications infrastructure. If the DoD does not include in its ambitious acquisition plans commensurate improvements and or increases in intelligence support dedicated to the information collected by UAs, as well as the communications architecture required to operate these systems, the UA force in 2020 may very well be a hollow one.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 2007
Accession Number
ADA506371

Entities

People

  • James R. Cluff

Organizations

  • Marine Corps Combat Development Command

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Autonomy
  • Engineered Resilient Systems
  • Sensors
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Aircrafts
  • Combat Operations
  • Department Of Defense
  • Homeland Security
  • Intelligence Community (United States)
  • Iraqi-War
  • Marine Corps
  • Military Operations
  • National Security
  • Surveillance
  • Synthetic Aperture Radar
  • Unmanned Aerial Systems
  • Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
  • Vehicles
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Aerial Unmanned Vehicle Swarm Micro Periodontal Dentistry.
  • Defense Acquisition Program Management
  • Maritime Combat Support and Expeditionary Logistics.

Technology Areas

  • Autonomy
  • Autonomy - UAVs