Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles, or UCAVs, have a rather sad history in the U.S. military. When the General Atomics RQ-1 Predator proved, in the 1990s, that you could arm a medium-sized surveillance drone with air-to-ground weapons and turn it into an elusive, lethal and relatively cheap hunter-killer, folks in the Pentagon got real excited. They wanted to take that basic concept, throw some money at it and see what happened if you designed a drone from the ground-up to be a killer. Boeing was working on one of these so-called UCAVs, the X-45, for the Air Force. Northrop Grumman, meanwhile, had the X-47, which was beefed up for Navy use. Both programs were joint efforts with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or Darpa. Looking to boost economies of scale, in 2003 the Pentagon brought both X-planes into the same program, called Joint-Unmanned Combat Air System. As J-UCAS picked up steam, Darpa relinquished control in 2005 and the military took over. A fly-off was imminent. The future looked bright.
Then, without warning in January 2006, the Air Force dropped out, effectively killing J-UCAS. The service said it had decided to focus money and effort on the new Long-Range Strike program to develop a new (perhaps unmanned) bomber. But folks inside the Boeing X-45 office said that was a load of bull and advanced their theories: that the Air Force was scared that the cheap, smart and lethal UCAVs might threaten the manned Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning fighter and start putting fighter pilots out of business; or that the Air Force was uncomfortable sharing technology with the Navy and letting the sea service call any shots in the UCAVs designs. (Navy airplanes have to be considerably bulkier and heavier than Air Force planes in order to survive repeated aircraft carrier launches and recoveries.)
Whatever the reason, the Navy was left to salvage something from J-UCAS. They renamed the program, first to N-UCAS for Naval then to UCAS-D for Demonstration. And they announced their intention to keep both industry teams in the running. Its taken an entire year for the Navy to piece UCAS-D together; the request for proposals is due any day now. But whether it will eventually produce a real live combat aircraft is anybodys guess. Technological hurdles are few but cultural, fiscal and organizational obstacles abound.
Sources inside the Boeing X-45 program say that the office has been effectively split in two, with some staff still surviving on remaining J-UCAS funds and others spending company money while awaiting the Navy contract. Problem is, these two camps are prohibited from working together, for political reasons. And those residing the viable Navy half of the office are apparently being rather mismanaged encouraged to do advanced work on X-45 despite the contract and prospects for government money being some months away. Thats risky, especially in light of the tenuous health of Boeings other drone programs, which have been stripped of people and money in order to keep UCAS-D going. No word on whether Northrop Grumman is suffering similar in-fighting. Probably not, considering that X-47 has long been Navy-optimized and also bearing in mind the firms tremendous success with the RQ-4 Global Hawk drone.
After a bullish decade, aerial drones are getting a reality check. The Pentagon has cast its lot with manned fighters over UCAVs and the Army is cutting in half its portfolio of future airborne drones in order to save cash; meanwhile, the Air Force seems to prefer a manned bomber for the Long-Range Strike mission. But if the Navy stands by UCAS-D, drones future just might turn around.
–David Axe, cross-posted at Ares
ALSO:
* Killer Drone Plan Revealed
* Killer Drone Construction Begins
* Killer Drone’s Big Brother
* Killer Drone, Dead; New Bomber Lives
* Who Killed the Killer Drone — and Why?
* Who Killed the Killer Drone? (Redux)
Probably the biggest problem with UCAVs, and why the USAF has backed off from them: They, by definition, need good communication, both to receive and to send.
I seriously doubt that the US will ever field an autonomous UCAV anytime soon, the limits to autonomous weapons in our doctrine are pretty severe because we don’t want skynet/collatoral damage scenarios.
With this restriction, then, UCAVs have a serious problem: They need to receive information from the pilot on the ground and, before getting permission to fire, they need to transmit information.
In a situation like Iraq, this isn’t a problem. The opposition isn’t bothering with widespread jamming and other attacks. Even in Iran it probably would be OK.
Heck, you could strap some hellfires on the Goodyear Blimp and be good with it in Iraq as long as you are flying high enough.
For the Army, this isn’t as big a problem. Much of what the Army would use a UCAV are tactical: there are already troops on the ground nearby, so breaking radio silence/stealth on the UCAV is not a problem.
But for the USAF, its potentially a huge problem: the moment the UCAV sends a message to get confirmation-to-fire, it finds some SAMs heading its way mui pronto.
Nicholas,
I disagree, with certain qualifiers.
Bear in mind that SATCOM arrays are highly directional. Yes, I know about sidelobes. But a good array combinded with spread-spectrum techniques makes interception very difficult.
An intercept network of sufficient capability to guide, or even “cue”, a weapons system would be quite an investment; unless I’m mistaken you’re talking about layer upon layer of receiver sites which would make the infrastructure of a modern cell network look like so many tinkertoys by comparison.
I’m eager to discuss this. Do you see angles left uncovered?
Good Post. I enjoyed your commentary.
On related matters, USA Today has recently reported in its Washington Section that the CIA plans to utilize more open sources and blogs in its intelligence work and outsource more of its intelligence software development to commercial contractors in an attempt to re-establish itself as the premiere world intelligence agency.
The “Strategic Intent” is posted on the CIA public web site. Defense Industry Daily further reports that General Electric is gobbling up Smith’s Industries for $4.8B.
http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/2007/01/ge-buys-smiths-aerospace-for-48b/index.php
I am a 2 tour Vietnam Veteran who recently retired after 36 years of working in the Defense Industrial Complex on many of the weapons systems being used by our forces as we speak. Let’s look at this for a moment and do our patriotic duty by reading along with the CIA (after all, they have announced they are reading this blog)
1. The new CIA approach comes exactly at the formation of the agency
Nicholas,
I understand the meaning of “intercept” which you’re referring to, but in this case I’m taling about the ability to *detect* a transmission, not comprehend it.
I think you have a valid point regarding potential dual-use of wireless infrastructure. This still puts an adversary a step behind– assuming said adversary can afford the mountains of hardware such a solution would entail. The adversary is still reacting to our threat. The dection network is hypothetical, but the UCAV is already proven.
Granting your proposition, who might we expect to deploy it? The Chinese or the Russians might be able to pull it off on some scale; can anyone else say the same?
I’m in a poor position to judge, but I like your point about Moore’s Law.