U(C)AV ontwikkelingen

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Navy to Launch Competition for Carrier-Based Unmanned Aircraft in 2013

By Valerie Insinna

Defense contractors will be asked to submit proposals next year for a next-generation unmanned aerial system that will be deployed from aircraft carriers, said the Navy's deputy program executive officer for UAS.

After a two-year delay, the Navy expects to issue a request for proposals in 2013 for its Unmanned Carrier-Launched Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS). The goal is to have the aircraft in the fleet by 2020, said Patrick Buckley at a Nov. 9 conference on unmanned aerial systems in Springfield, Va.

The road to establishing requirements for UCLASS has been fraught with debate, with officials in a tug-of-war on how advanced UCLASS should be, given fiscal and technological constraints.

"It has never been quite clear exactly what the requirements would be for the system," said Phil Finnegan, director of corporate analysis for the Teal Group, a market research firm. "Obviously it's a struggle between the latest and most capable and affordability."

The Navy is in the final stages of nailing down those requirements, said Buckley, who offered a few hints of what the service would be looking for.

UCLASS will harness "mature" technology that has been demonstrated in relevant operational environments, as opposed to technology in very early stages of development, Buckley said. Bidders can propose commercial off-the-shelf or modified off-the-shelf components within their design, as well as new components that contain mature technology, he continued.

The project includes three segments: upgrades to carriers to support unmanned operations, the UCLASS aircraft and mission systems, and the command-and-control system. The Navy will be the lead systems integrator for the components, providing data and interface specifications to allow the contractor to deliver the air vehicle and mission systems, Buckley said.

Finnegan predicts contractors will offer systems based on existing platforms. For instance, Northrop Grumman will likely leverage technology from the Unmanned Combat Air System Demonstration (UCAS-D), which is being used by the Navy to understand how to best integrate unmanned systems onto an aircraft carrier. The Boeing Co., General Atomics and Lockheed Martin will draw from their experiences with the Phantom Ray, Avenger and RQ-170 Sentinel, respectively, Finnegan said.

"I would expect that the Navy is going to be careful about development costs," he said. "It's not going to want to push this technology too hard."

The Navy will seek to avoid the pitfalls the Air Force fell into during the abandoned MQ-X program, which was cancelled after the service could not strike a balance between the desired requirements for the aircraft and a constrained budget.

Finnegan said it's hard to say if a similar fate awaits the UCLASS program. In the current budget environment, he said, all new starts could be vulnerable. 

At the very least, the program could see another delay as a result of fiscal pressures and possible technical issues, he said. "If you look at what happened in the 2013 defense budget request, even high priority UAV programs got cut, and the UCLASS got pushed out two years."

He expects all UCLASS competitors will be U.S. firms. Because of the classified nature of the project, there will be limitations placed upon the involvement of foreign defense contractors, said Buckley. "I don't know to what degree those limitations will be, but there will be some."

http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=968

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China Unveils Yi Long UAV

Published: Wed November 14th, 2012 via: RIA Novosti

BEIJING, November 14 (RIA Novosti) - China has unveiled for the first time its Yi Long unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) local media reported on Wednesday, which its makers claim is far cheaper than its Israeli and American analogs at less than $1 million.

The UAV, which was unveiled at the Air China aerospace show in Zhuhai on Tuesday, has been under development by the Chengdu aircraft-building institute since 2005, and made a first test-flight in 2008, and has only been previously shown in model form.

Yi Long can be used for military or civil tasks, the makers say, including geophysical or post-disaster survey work. The aircraft has a length of 9.34 meters, a wingspan of 14 meters and a mass of just over a ton. It has a ceiling of 5,300 meters and a range of 4,000 kilometers, with an endurance of up to 20 hours.

Pictures shown on Sky News show it has having a similar configuration to the US-made MQ-9 Reaper, with a pusher engine, V-tail, long-span straight wing, and fuselage shape configured for low radar cross-section. It was also shown armed with under-wing missiles, and an electro-optical sensor turret under the forward fuselage.

The Chinese say the UAV has "already successfully entered the international market," but provided no further details.

http://air-attack.com/news/article/4908/2012-11-14-China-Unveils-Yi-Long-UAV.html

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Sukhoi to Build Strike, Recon Unmanned Planes

ZHUHAI, November 13 (RIA Novosti) - Russian aircraft maker Sukhoi is to focus on creating reconnaissance and strike unmanned air vehicles (UAV) in the near future, United Aircraft Corporation President Mikhail Pogosyan said at the Zhuhai Airshow China exhibition on Tuesday.

Sukhoi, which has historically designed fighter and ground attack aircraft but now also builds some civil aircraft, is part of UAC, a holding covering most of Russia's aircraft industry.

"UAVs are a strategic avenue for development for UAC, and Sukhoi is focused on creating reconnaissance and strike UAVs. But our firm plans on this are in the future," he said.

Previous UAVs created for Russia's amed forces have been produced by Tranzas and Sokol, in addition to Sukhoi.

Sukhoi has designs on its website for a series of unmanned aircraft known as Zond, optimised for the carriage of surveillance and synthetic-aperture radars and electro-optical sensors.

In 2011, Sukhoi won a contract to develope a heavy strike UAV with a mass of around 20 tons, Fedutinov said. Another Russian fighter aircraft design bureau, RAC MiG, will also be involved in this program, MiG's CEO Sergei Korotkov told Russian media earlier this year.

MiG showed a demonstrator strike UAV design known as Skat at the MAKS airshow in Moscow in 2007.

St. Petersburg-based Tranzas and Kazan-based Sokol won a tender in October 2011 to create two UAV systems with a mass of one ton and five tons respectively.

Zie link voor een foto.

http://en.ria.ru/mlitary_news/20121113/177420795.html

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U.S. Navy Continues Testing of Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles For Aircraft Carriers

10 november 2012

PATUXENT RIVER, Md. — Navy representatives recently participated in tests for the Unmanned Combat Air System Demonstration (UCAS-D) that will drive recommendations for digital messaging implementation and unmanned aircraft integration into the carrier environment.

Air traffic controllers from USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) and USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) supported the final Human Systems Integration (HSI) modeling and simulation testing at the N-UCAS Aviation/Ship Integration Facility (NASIF) here. The HSI evaluations included analyses and tests of the displays, controls, environments, system communications, overall task allocations and operator situations.

The NASIF building contains Primary Flight Control (PriFly), Landing Signals Officer (LSO), Carrier Air Traffic Control Center (CATCC) and Mission Control Element (MCE) equipment required to direct manned and unmanned aircraft on and around a carrier. The UCAS-D program uses the facility for system integration, unmanned air vehicle and manned surrogate demonstration events.

"It was very exciting to see fleet CATCC controllers successfully demonstrate the technology our team has been developing for years," said Capt. Jaime Engdahl, UCAS-D program manager, who observed USS Vinson controllers during tests in early October. "There was such a high level of energy in the room during their test periods. You really felt like you were observing a CATCC team actually conducting operations at sea."

NASIF team members matured technologies for carrier suitable unmanned air systems by updating the current aircraft carrier systems' software functionality and integrating them into a common digital network. Next year, this integrated carrier environment will be demonstrated using the Northrop Grumman-built X-47B, the first tailless unmanned aircraft designed to operate aboard an aircraft carrier.

"Due to the extremely limited availability of aircraft carriers for installation and testing of new aviation systems, shore-based emulation of shipboard systems and procedures is paramount to ensure cost-effective and timely integration," Engdahl said. "We support the fleet users. That's why having them come down and test this technology early is so important."

During recent tests using the program's CATCC simulator, the NASIF team challenged controllers to conduct operations in a future digitized environment, far advanced from what they are used to in the fleet today. Presently, they control multiple aircraft using radar displays and issue flight instructions to pilots using voice radio communications. Inside the NASIF, they had the ability to send and receive digital instructions to aircraft, in addition to using voice instructions.

The Sailors utilized actual shipboard CATCC radar consoles with software modified to send air traffic controllers' digital instructions and receive digital responses from the air vehicle. The program's ship interface systems team lead Kevin Kjose noted that the air traffic controllers did not have to learn a new skill set, just a different way to deliver commands to aircraft.

"After the learning curve the first day, we realized it was not too much for our controllers to handle," said Lt. John Woods, CVN 72 CATCC Officer. "We do see that there is a clear advantage to using this technology in the future."

Each nine-person air traffic control team completed approximately 20 simulated test scenarios. Controller workload was captured during these scenarios by testing a combination of digital and voice messaging test conditions with a mixture of manned and unmanned aircraft. During early scenarios, the controllers relayed verbal commands to a UAV mission operator elsewhere on the "ship" who entered digital commands to control the vehicle. Later in the week they graduated to testing advanced scenarios, using integrated digital messaging capability and higher levels of system automation.

"A major objective for our program is to demonstrate a completely digital carrier control environment where any aircraft could utilize this technology in the future, but we need to introduce that technology incrementally to allow controllers to embrace change," Kjose said. "As we bring the X-47B demonstrators to the carrier for sea trials, controllers will continue to use voice control for manned aircraft operations, but in the not too distant future, users will become more proficient with digital technology and will look for the ability to fully integrate air wing operations with manned and unmanned aircraft."

The tests demonstrated the controllers' effectiveness to manage operations in the carrier control area. Engineers measured the time it took operators to send and transmit messages, calculated from button actions, message times and voice recordings. They also looked at the impact on the controllers' visual senses by using a tracking camera to record eye movement. Overloading visual senses can lead to reduced performance, which is why human factors engineers seek to organize the on-screen displays and controls in the most efficient manner possible.

"We wanted to find out if the system was easy to use; did the display promote effective mission task completion; and if users felt comfortable with autonomous operations," said John Winters, a human factors engineer who helped design the software.

The concept provides functionality improvements with a goal of decreasing controller work load, which will help improve safety, Kjose said. For example, controllers will not need to ask pilots for fuel state updates every 10 minutes like they do today. Instead, updates will be automatically populated and displayed on the carrier's Integrated Ships Information System (ISIS).

Another improvement is controllers can send digital messages to specific aircraft at any time during flight. Aircraft routinely land aboard carriers at 60 second intervals and controllers are restricted from speaking on the radios during the last 20 seconds prior to landing. For controllers, it's a huge advantage to communicate directly with other aircraft while one is on final approach, he added.

"The digital data link definitely adds flexibility that is not there today," said Chief Air Traffic Controller (SW/AW) Robert Rygg.

The extensive modeling and simulation of launch and recovery operations conducted in the NASIF by fleet users allowed the UCAS-D team to evaluate integration of manned and unmanned aircraft flight operations and the effects on human operators utilizing new digital messaging technology.

"The information the CVN 70 and CVN 72 teams gave this program is going to help revolutionize carrier operations, Kjose said. "We are laying the groundwork for future carrier-based operations."

http://blogs.ottawacitizen.com/2012/11/10/u-s-navy-continues-testing-of-unmanned-combat-air-vehicles-for-aircraft-carriers/

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Japan wil drone tegen raketaanval Noord-Korea

zondag 04 november 2012

TOKIO - Japan wil militair beter voorbereid zijn op raketaanvallen en bijvoorbeeld laag vliegende projectielen uit Noord-Korea tijdig ontdekken.

Het Japanse ministerie van Defensie wil circa 3 miljard yen (circa 290 miljoen euro) uittrekken voor de ontwikkeling van een onbemand vliegtuigje met infraroodsensor, meldde krant Yomiuri Shimbun zondag.

Het lukte Japan in april niet om de lancering van een Noord-Koreaanse raket te signaleren. Japan was daarvoor afhankelijk van informatie die door de VS werd aangeleverd. Het Japanse detectiesysteem liet het vermoedelijk afweten omdat het Noord-Koreaanse projectiel er te laag voor vloog. Die raket bleef overigens maar enkele minuten in de lucht.

Volgens het Japanse ministerie van Defensie moet een speciaal ontwikkelde drone in de toekomst uitkomst bieden. Het onbemande toestel moet in 2020 in gebruik worden genomen.

http://www.ed.nl/nieuws/algemeen/buitenland/11980909/Japan-wil-drone-tegen-raketaanval-Noord-Korea.ece

[IPA NG]

Wat gaan wij nu eigenlijk aanschaffen? Ik begreep dat het Predators gaan worden, dan zou heel jammer zijn want ik zie liever Reapers. Maar de Reaper is ook weer een Predator versie dus misschien...

[dudge]

Hopen dat die demonstraters ook een mooi modelletje op gaan leveren. De concepten lijken wel mooie ontwerpen te zijn in ieder geval.

[jurrien visser (JuVi op Twitter)]

Mantis concept demonstrator targeted to fly in the UK

BAE Systems has announced its intention to re-fly the Mantis UAS Concept Demonstrator – this time in UK airspace. This will be the first flight of a UAS (Unmanned Air System) of this class in UK airspace

Flying Mantis will enable the Company to continue to mature a number of UAS capabilities and technologies, underpinning BAE Systems' strategy to become a world-class provider of unmanned air systems. The flight activity will support the development of future MALE (Medium Altitude Long Endurance) and UCAS (Unmanned Combat Air Systems) operational capabilities, including the programmes announced at the Anglo-French Summit in February this year. By looking to fly Mantis in the UK, BAE Systems is directly aiming to address the associated challenges of airspace integration and safe operation of an airborne system in accordance with UK rules and regulations.

Over the coming months the Company will be working with the appropriate regulators to fully understand the safety, airworthiness and regulatory frameworks which will enable such a flight to take place in 2013.

The Company is currently looking at a number of potential locations in the UK which meet the trials objectives and will work with a number of agencies on the feasibility, timing and location of the flights.  These locations will be selected in full consultation with the relevant authorities.

Tom Fillingham, Future Combat Air Systems Director, BAE Systems said: "We will undertake a further phase of flight trials for the Mantis but this time rather than going overseas we have given ourselves the challenge to conduct the trials in the UK. To secure our position as a provider of key capabilities in the unmanned market it is necessary that we continue to develop key skills and capabilities. Learning from the re-flight of Mantis will be used in future UAS programmes, including our partnership with Dassault Aviation."

http://www.baesystems.com/article/BAES_057649/mantis-concept-demonstrator-targeted-to-fly-in-the-uk?_afrLoop=176188170598000

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Taranis passes the test

Taranis, the UK's unmanned combat air system technology demonstrator, has successfully completed a series of key tests on the way to commencing flight trials in 2013.

The low observable (LO) platform recently completed radar cross section tests at BAE Systems' Warton site and the initial analysis has indicated that the programme has met and potentially exceeded the extremely challenging targets jointly aspired to by the UK's Ministry of Defence (MOD) and Industry. In addition, the testing of the propulsion system has been completed. Undertaken at Rolls-Royce, the testing included measurement of Taranis's infra-red signature and the results have demonstrated BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce's credentials in designing and manufacturing an LO propulsion system.

As a result of these positive initial test results, the MOD requested an extension to the testing. The output of these additional tests is currently being analysed and due to this extension, the flight trials are planned to take place in 2013.

Tom Fillingham, Future Combat Air Systems Director said: "When considered together, the results of these two key test programmes demonstrate the UK's ability to design low observable solutions for our future unmanned combat systems.

"The progress being made on the programme, and the learning we are taking from it, is very positive and the drive now to getting Taranis in the air clearly shows the confidence Industry and the UK's MOD has in the UK's ability to develop world-leading unmanned combat aircraft technologies and capabilities."

http://www.baesystems.com/article/BAES_057647/taranis-passes-the-test?_afrLoop=176007767646000

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'CIA wil meer drones aankopen'

AFP Toegevoegd: vrijdag 19 okt 2012

De CIA wil haar vloot van onbemande bewapende drones fors uitbreiden, meldt de Washington Post. CIA-directeur Petraeus zou druk uitoefenen op het Witte Huis om hiermee akkoord te gaan.

Als Petraeus zijn zin krijgt, zou de CIA 10 drones kunnen toevoegen aan de huidige vloot van zo'n 30 tot 35 onbemande vliegtuigjes.

Doelen

Voor de inzet van drones op al-Qaidadoelen in Jemen gebruikt de spionagedienst nu vaak toestellen van de Amerikaanse luchtmacht. Die beschikt over een veel uitgebreider arsenaal. CIA, Pentagon en het Witte Huis beslissen samen over de doelen die onder vuur worden genomen.

Er is kritiek op de nauwe samenwerking tussen de CIA en Defensie, omdat hun traditioneel verschillende rollen steeds verder vermengd raken. De CIA gaat in Pakistan en Jemen steeds vaker zelf in de aanval, terwijl Defensie meer en meer spionagetaken op zich neemt.

Mali en Libië

De CIA wil ook graag drones inzetten boven Mali en Libië, twee landen waar moslimextremisten en al-Qaida hun macht steeds verder uitbouwen.

Het CIA-voorstel om de dronesvloot uit te breiden moet worden getoetst door het Witte Huis, het Pentagon, Buitenlandse Zaken en enkele andere betrokken organisaties.

In de regio's waar drones worden ingezet, is veel kritiek op het gebruik van de toestellen. Ze zouden veel burgerslachtoffers maken en daardoor mensen in de armen van extremisten drijven.

Bron: NOS

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Switzerland completes Israeli UAV evaluations

By:   Arie Egozi Tel Aviv

Switzerland has completed in-country flight evaluations of two Israeli unmanned air systems, with a decision on its medium-altitude, long-endurance surveillance requirement expected to be made during 2014.

Israel Aerospace Industries' Heron 1 (above) was tested by the Armasuisse procurement agency in September, with the activity having been followed by flights with Elbit Systems' Hermes 900 (below) this month. Both air vehicles were demonstrated in a variety of flight envelopes.

The competition in Switzerland is the latest in a long list in which the rival manufacturers have gone head-to-head.

In May, Elbit won a contract to supply a mixed fleet of Hermes 900 and smaller Hermes 450 UAS to Colombia.

Sources in the Israeli defence establishment say the deal was placed under a government-to-government arrangement after a previous purchase was cancelled amid a "power struggle" between Elbit and IAI.

Zie link voor de plaatjes.

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/switzerland-completes-israeli-uav-evaluations-377780/

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Unmanned Aerial Vehicles to Become Lighter, Faster 

November 2012 

By Yasmin Tadjdeh

In the future, the military can expect to have unmanned aerial vehicles that are faster, stealthier and lighter, with longer endurance and can hold heavier payloads.

"[There will be] more focus on making systems that are stealthier, so they can't be detected as easily by the enemies, [and] more autonomous so they can operate more on their own. So, if they lose [a] communication link with the headquarters, they can continue to do their mission," said Phil Finnegan, director of corporate analysis at The Teal Group.

Future unmanned aircraft will also be more fuel efficient, Finnegan said.

While there is a desire to make a more advanced generation of UAVs, the Defense Department also faces budgetary concerns. Even if the Pentagon could find the perfect UAV, would it financially be within the department's reach? Finnegan noted that the Navy has let its Unmanned Carrier-Launched Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) program — an initiative to deploy new unmanned aircraft aboard carriers over the next decade — slip by two years. In February, the Navy also canceled its medium-range unmanned aerial system program.

One problem for the UCLASS system is fitting the aircraft on a ship, said Larry Dickerson, an analyst at Forecast International. The Navy has long faced the issue of limited ship deck space, making difficult decisions and picking and choosing which equipment and weapons to bring along. Besides that, other logistical questions have come up, such as whether to bring on specialized maintenance crews, or train existing crews to fix them.

"You can't just put it on an aircraft carrier and say 'go,'" Dickerson said.

As for when the Navy will actually start acquiring the UCLASS, Dickerson said the best-case scenario is in the next 20 to 30 years.

For now, customers are looking to get the most bang for their buck, Dickerson said.

The "Holy Grail" for those buying the systems would be finding one that has the capabilities of a medium-altitude, long endurance (MALE) UAV, but for the price of a tactical system, Dickerson said.

"They are getting more and more expensive," said Dickerson.

With MALE-UAVs "there is more wiggle room" to add features such as various payloads, but Dickerson noted that they require long runways, which can sometimes make them less ideal to use depending on the situation.

Reducing costs is now more important than ever for customers, Dickerson said. Over the last 10 years, UAVs have seen a huge increase in sales, but at the same time, when they first arrived the military saw them as expendable, Dickerson said. Now, as the aircraft becomes standard inventory, the services want them to be sturdier, stronger, faster and stealthier. But those features come with a high price tag.

One way to improve their capabilities — and control cost — would be the meshing together of large and small UAVs.

"With UAVs, as technology improves and performance improves, you can see a merging between tactical and MALE, moving towards each other," Dickerson said.

Customers will want more for their money, and in the future will likely expect an aircraft that is configurable depending on the mission.

As for the Defense Department, it will be looking for UAVs that can survive in contested airspace, Dickerson said. There have only been a few isolated incidents of them being struck down by anti-aircraft guns in Afghanistan. However, in a future war operating over a high-threat air-defense environment, drone fleets would likely take losses, Dickerson said. Even if an adversary doesn't have anti-aircraft guns, the lower in altitude a UAV flies, the more obstacles it can collide with, whether that is other aircraft or general artillery. Future remotely piloted aircraft need to be faster and stealthier if they want to survive below 15,000 feet, Dickerson said. Supersonic UAVs may be one way to resolve the issue, though technologically, industry isn't there yet.

Industry would also be wise to design drones that can transport more cargo, Dickerson said.

"It's always a trade-off between range and payload, and especially now that they are arming things," Dickerson said. A UAV that could go farther, while carrying more, would be a hot-ticket item.

One benefit with unmanned aircraft is that contractors can take advantage of gaps in the market and develop out-of-the-box concepts, Dickerson said.

"We're not stuck with any certain requirements because the requirements are so fluid," said Dickerson. This allows for innovation. Currently, developers are using the "spaghetti method" to find the next big thing, Dickerson said. They are throwing a piece of pasta at a wall and seeing what sticks.

The Boeing Co. is looking at a wide range of concepts for the technology.

"There are some niches out there that need to be filled, and probably right now that is high-altitude and endurance," said Warren Henderson, director of Advanced Boeing Military Aircraft Business Development for Phantom Works.

One of the more promising concepts is the Phantom Eye, a high-altitude, long endurance (HALE) UAV. The lightweight aircraft — its gross weight is 9,800 pounds — uses a hydrogen propellant, can carry a 450-pound payload and fly for four days at 65,000 feet.

The hydrogen propellant is no more expensive than gasoline and is readily available, Henderson said. Environmentally, hydrogen fuel is also ideal because its byproduct is water. The hydrogen fuel concept is one that Boeing is looking to implement across some of its other products.

The Phantom Eye unmanned airborne system completed its first autonomous flight June 1 at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards, Calif., during which it reached an altitude of 4,080 feet cruising at 62 knots. With proper equipment, the aircraft can communicate with surface ships up to 800 nautical miles away.

Boeing is also working on making a HALE-UAV that can fly for 10 days and carry a payload of 2,000 pounds. At the same time, the company is developing aircraft that will be more autonomous and better suited to fly in contested airspace. While Boeing is pushing for more autonomous capabilities, a company spokeswoman noted that manned vehicles are not going away; it plans to work on concepts to help unmanned and manned aircraft teams, something the Defense Department is demanding.

The 2011 Unmanned Systems Integrated Roadmap, put out by the office of the secretary of defense, said unmanned and manned forces must collaborate in order for their performance to be fully maximized.

"Today's force includes a diverse mix of manned and unmanned systems. To achieve the full potential of unmanned systems, DoD must continue to implement technologies and evolve tactics, techniques and procedures that improve the teaming of unmanned systems with the manned force," the report said.

Dickerson also stressed a need for greater collaboration between humans and UAVs. A remotely piloted aircraft can't tell the difference between an insurgent and a civilian, and analysts on the ground are needed to back up the intelligence, Dickerson said.

However, the report also said in the future, the Defense Department will look toward more affordable autonomous unmanned aircraft in order to reduce manpower.

"Today's iteration of unmanned systems involves a high degree of human interaction. DoD must continue to pursue technologies and policies that introduce a higher degree of autonomy to reduce the manpower burden and reliance on full time high-speed communications links while also reducing decision loop cycle time," the report said.

For now, all signs point to increased investments in unmanned aerial technology, and Henderson foresees the technology being around for a long time.

"UAVs have proven their utility and their usefulness not only by being able to do the mission cheaper, [but] also by being able to do the mission ... [in] areas where it could be risky to human life," said Henderson.

http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/archive/2012/November/Pages/UnmannedAerialVehiclestoBecomeLighter,Faster.aspx

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Shelling Out: New Reports Shows UK Has Spent £2bn on Drones

(Source: Drone Wars UK; issued Sept. 27, 2012)

Drone Wars UK is today publishing a report that shows the UK Government has already spent over £2 billion purchasing, developing and researching drones and unmanned systems since 2007.

The report, "Shelling Out: UK Government Spending on Unmanned Drones", finds that the UK has spent £872m on five different drones that are currently in service with British forces, including £506m on the armed MQ-9 Reaper drone. The UK has committed a further £1,031m to developing new drones such as the Watchkeeper UAV and BAE Systems Taranis drone. Finally the UK has funded £120m of research within UK universities and British defence companies looking at unmanned systems. This included £30m funding for the ASTRAEA programme to open up UK civil airspace to autonomous drones.

In addition to the £2bn already spent, in 2013 the UK is likely to begin committing funds to the Scavenger programme to develop a new armed medium altitude, long endurance (MALE) drone. The UK MoD estimates the Scavenger programme will cost £2bn over its lifetime.

Click here for the full report (12 PDF pages) on the Drones War UK website.

http://dronewarsuk.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/shelling-out-uk-spending-on-drones.pdf

http://www.defense-aerospace.com/article-view/release/138854/uk-spent-%C2%A32bn-on-uavs%2C-plans-%C2%A32bn-more.html

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The Next Wave in U.S. Robotic War: Drones on their Own

by Naharnet Newsdesk

The U.S. military's current fleet of drones will soon be overtaken by a new wave of robots that will be faster, stealthier and smarter -- operating virtually without human intervention, experts say.

The Pentagon is investing heavily in "autonomy" for robotic weapons, with researchers anticipating squadrons of drones in the air, land or sea that would work in tandem with manned machines -- often with a minimum of supervision.

"Before they were blind, deaf and dumb. Now we're beginning to make them to see, hear and sense," Mark Maybury, chief scientist for the U.S. Air Force, told Agence France Presse.

Unmanned aircraft are now overseen by "pilots" on the ground but as the drones become more sophisticated, the role of remote operators will be more hands-off.

Instead of being "in the loop," humans will be "on the loop," said Maybury, explaining that operators will be able to "dial in" when needed to give a drone direction for a specific task.

"We're moving into more and more autonomous systems. That's an evolutionary arc," said Peter Singer, an expert on robotic weapons and author of "Wired for War."

"So the role moves from being sort of the operator from afar, to more like the supervisor or manager, and a manager giving more and more of a leash, more and more independence," he said.

Despite the dramatic advances in technology, the American military insists humans will remain in control when it comes to using lethal force.

But the next generation of increasingly capable drones will stretch man's capacity to control robots in battle, generating unprecedented moral and legal quandaries.

"These (technological) responses that are driven by science, politics and battlefield necessity get you into areas where the lawyers just aren't ready for it yet," Singer told AFP.

Over the next decade, changes in computing power will enable teams of hi-tech drones to operate virtually on their own, or as "robotic wingmen" to piloted aircraft, said Werner Dahm, the Air Force's former top scientist.

At a testing range in the Arizona desert, Apache helicopters are flying together with unmanned choppers in experiments the Pentagon believes will serve as an eventual model for future warfare.

"We're not far away from having a single piloted Apache or other helicopter system and a larger number of unmanned systems that fly with that," said Dahm, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Arizona State University.

"These require very high levels of machine reasoning. We're much closer to that than most people realize," Dahm told AFP.

The new technology has turned the U.S. Air Force's doctrine upside down. For decades, the military trained pilots to face an enemy "alone and unafraid," flying deep into hostile territory to strike at a target and then return home.

Now the Air Force is planning for scenarios in which different tasks would be divided up among manned and unmanned "systems," with drones jamming enemy air defenses, tracking targets and assessing bomb damage, while piloted warplanes oversee the launching of bombs and missiles.

Instead of the slow-flying turbo-prop Predator, future drones likely will more closely resemble their manned counterparts, with a longer range, more powerful jet engines and radar-evading stealth design, which the bat-winged Sentinel drone already has pioneered.

But the biggest technical hurdle for Pentagon-funded scientists is delivering an iron-clad guarantee that the more autonomous vehicles will not make a grievous mistake with potentially catastrophic consequences.

"You have to be able to show that the system is not going to go awry -- you have to disprove a negative," Dahm said. "It's very difficult to prove that something won't go wrong."

One veteran robotics scientist, Ronald Arkin, a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, believes that countries will inevitably deploy independent robots capable of killing an enemy without a human pushing a button.

Arkin, who has worked on U.S. defense programs for years, argues that robotic weapons can and should be designed as "ethical" warriors, with the ability to distinguish combatants from innocent civilians.

Without emotions to cloud their judgment and anger driving their actions, the robots could wage war in a more restrained, "humane" way, in accordance with the laws of war, Arkin said.

"It is not my belief that an unmanned system will be able to be perfectly ethical in the battlefield, but I am convinced that they can perform more ethically than human soldiers are capable of," he wrote.

SourceAgence France Presse.

TechnologyUnited States of America.

http://www.naharnet.com/stories/en/55094-the-next-wave-in-u-s-robotic-war-drones-on-their-own

[jurrien visser (JuVi op Twitter)]

France, Germany Sign MALE Cooperate Deal

Sep. 13, 2012 - 10:09AM

By PIERRE TRAN   PARIS — France and Germany signed up Sept. 12 to work together on a medium-altitude, long-endurance (MALE) unmanned aerial system (UAS), while respecting commitments for Anglo-French cooperation on a future MALE drone, the French Defense Ministry said in a statement.

"In the MALE – UAS domain, France and Germany have agreed on a common set of key operational requirements for a possible European solution," the ministry said.

"Through this agreement France and Germany are in the position to foster a cooperation for the realization of a MALE UAS. In addition, the possibility of an operational cooperation as a bridging phase will be assessed," the ministry said.

The work with Germany would be "fully consistent" with French undertakings in the 2010 Lancaster House defense treaty with Britain, which includes cooperation on a new generation MALE UAV, the statement said.

"France and Germany have the objective to deepen the possibilities of European cooperation," the statement said.

The French procurement head, German defense state secretary, and the respective chiefs of defense staff signed the agreement, the ministry said.

http://www.defensenews.com/article/20120913/DEFREG01/309130002?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter