An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), sometimes called an unmanned air-

reconnaissance vehicle, is an unpiloted aircraft. UAVs can be remote controlled

or fly autonomously based on pre-programmed flight plans or more complex
dynamic automation systems. UAVs are currently used in a number of military
roles, including reconnaissance and attack. They are also used in a small but
growing number of civil applications such as firefighting where a human observer
would be at risk, police observation of civil disturbances and scenes of crimes, and
reconnaissance support in natural disasters.
There are a wide variety UAV shapes, sizes, configurations, and characteristics. For
the purposes of this article, and to distinguish UAVs from missiles, a UAV is defined
as being capable of controlled, sustained level flight and powered by a jet or
reciprocating engine. Cruise missiles are not classed as UAVs, because, like many
other guided missiles, the vehicle itself is a weapon that is not reused even though
it is also unmanned and might in some cases be remotely guided.
The acronym UAV has been expanded in some cases to UAVS (Unmanned Aircraft
Vehicle System). The Federal Aviation Administration has adopted the generic class
Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) originally introduced by the U.S. Navy to reflect
the fact that these are not just aircraft, but systems including ground stations and
other elements.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are remotely piloted or self-piloted aircraft that
can carry cameras, sensors, communications equipment or other payloads. They
have been used in a reconnaissance and intelligence-gathering role since the
1950s, and more challenging roles are envisioned, including combat missions.
Since 1964 the Defense Department has developed 11 different UAVs, though due
to acquisition and development problems only 3 entered production. The US Navy
has studyied the feasibility of operating VTOL UAVs since the early 1960s, the QH-
50 Gyrodyne torpedo-delivery drone being an early example. However, high cost
and technological immaturity have precluded acquiring and fielding operational
VTOL UAV systems.
By the early 1990s DOD sought UAVs to satisfy surveillance requirements in Close
Range, Short Range or Endurance categories. Close Range was defined to be within
50 kilometers, Short Range was defined as within 200 kilometers and Endurance as
anything beyond. By the late 1990s, the Close and Short Range categories were
combined, and a separate Shipboard category emerged. The current classes of
these vehicles are the Tactical UAV and the Endurance category.
Pioneer: Procured beginning in 1985 as an interim UAV capability to provide
imagery intelligence for tactical commanders on land and see at ranges out to 185
kilometers. No longer in the Army inventory (returned to the US Navy in 1995).
Tactical UAV : Designed to support tactical commanders with near-real-time
imagery intelligence at ranges up to 200 kilometers. Outrider Advanced Concept
Technology Demonstration (ACTD) program terminated. Material solution for TUAV
requirements is being pursued through a competive acquisition process with goal of
contract award in DEC 99.
Joint Tactical UAV (Hunter): Developed to provide ground and maritime forces
with near-real-time imagery intelligence at ranges up to 200 kilometers; extensible
to 300+ kilometers by using another Hunter UAV as an airborne relay. Training
base located at Fort Huachuca, with additional baseline at Fort Polk to support JRTC
rotations. Operational assets based at Fort Hood (currently supporting the KFOR in
Kosovo).
Medium Altitude Endurance UAV (Predator): Advanced Concept Technology
Demonstration now transitioned to Low-Rate Initial Production (LRIP). Provides
imagery intelligence to satisfy Joint Task Force and Theater Commanders at ranges
out to 500 nautical miles. No longer in the Army inventory (transferred to the US
Air Force in 1996).
High Altitude Endurance UAV (Global Hawk): Intended for missions requiring
long-range deployment and wide-area surveillance (EO/IR and SAR) or long sensor
dwell over the target area. Directly deployable from CONUS to the theater of
operations. Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration (ACTD) managed by the
US Air Force.
Tactical Control Station (TCS): The Tactical Control Station is the software and
communications links required to control the TUAV, MAE-UAV, and other future
tactical UAV's. It also provides connectivity to other C4I systems.
Micro Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (MAV): DARPA program to explore the
military relevance of Micro Air Vehicles for future military operations, and to
develop and demonstrate flight enabling technologies for very small aircraft (less
than 15cm/6in. in any dimension).
Unmanned Endurance Payload Altitude Capability STATUS
Aerial Vehicle (Hours) Weight (Feet)
Name (Pounds)
AQM-34N
hr. lbs. ft.
Firebee
Aquila hr. lbs. ft.
17,000 ft. (gas) -
Arcturus T-16 16 hr. 20 lbs.
40,000 ft. (electric)
COMPASS
hr. lbs. ft.
ARROW
COMPASS BIN hr. lbs. ft.
COMPASS COPE hr. lbs. ft.
COMPASS
hr. lbs. ft.
DAWN
Condor hr. lbs. ft.
CR-TUAV hr. lbs. ft.
CR-UAV hr. lbs. ft.
Darkstar 8 hrs. 1,000 lbs. 45,000 ft.
Dragon hr. lbs. ft.
Eagle Eye 8 hrs. 300 lbs. 20,000 ft.
Exdrone 2.5 hr. 25 lbs 10,000 ft.
Firebee 1.25 hrs. 470 lbs. 60,000 ft.
Global Hawk 42 hrs. 1,960 lbs. 65,000 ft.
Gnat 750 48 hrs. 140 lbs. 25,000 ft.
Hunter 12 hrs. 200 lbs. 15,000 ft.
Model 324 2.5 hrs. 200 lbs. 43,000 ft.
 Model 410 12 hrs. 300 lbs. 30,000 ft.
MR-UAV hr. lbs. ft.
MRE hr. lbs. ft.
Outrider 4 hrs. 160 lbs. 15,000 ft.
Pioneer 5.5 hrs. 75 lbs. 12,000 ft.
Pointer 1 hr. 2 lbs. 3,000 ft.
Predator 29 hrs. 700 lbs. +40,000 ft.
SEA FERRET hr. lbs. ft.
SENIOR BOWL
hr. lbs. ft.
[D-21]
VT-UAV hr. lbs. ft.
VT-UAV
hr. lbs. ft.
Dragonfly
VT-UAV
hr. lbs. ft.
Vigilante
VT-UAV
hr. lbs. ft.
Guardian
MQ-8B Army
hr. lbs. ft.
Fire Scout
MQ-8B Navy
hr. lbs. ft.
Fire Scout

4 May 2001
UCAVs spread their wings
Bill Sweetman

Since 1997, when the Uninhabited Combat Air Vehicle (UCAV) was a gleam in
the eye of a few advanced researchers, the concept has made remarkably
rapid and solid progress, writes Bill Sweetman.

The first designed-from-the-ground-up UCAV is being prepared for its first

flight, and the program is on track to support the start of engineering and
manufacturing development (EMD) in 2008. A second UCAV program, to develop a larger and
more versatile UCAV for the US Navy, is gathering speed.

Both projects reflect a consensus on what UCAVs should be designed to do. Suppression of
enemy air defenses (SEAD) is the first mission to be tackled, followed by precision strike. Both
UCAVs strike a similar balance between cost and capability. While they cost a fraction of the
price of a manned fighter, they are certainly not toys: the DARPA/Boeing X-45 is the size of an
advanced trainer like the BAE Systems Hawk, and the navy's UCAV will be larger still.

The larger UCAVs are big enough to carry off-the-shelf weapons and have as great a range as
any tactical fighter. They carry onboard sensors, including active radar, and are designed to
operate as autonomously as the rules of engagement will permit. With the advance of computer
power in the last few years, designers are now reasonably confident that UCAVs will be able to
respond in a quasi-intelligent manner to new threats and targets. Both UCAVs take advantage
of small size, non-afterburning engines and the absence of a cockpit to achieve inherently
stealthy designs, probably without using the most advanced and sensitive materials.

The proof of the pudding

Next year, the first UCAV is due to start realistic mission testing, and this will indicate whether
the vehicles are indeed survivable, lethal and smart enough to carry out useful military missions
without generating as many headaches for their users as for the enemy.

Early in April, the first DARPA/Boeing X-45A UCAV prototype was undergoing engine
runs at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in California, and the second X-45A
was being readied for painting in St Louis. Developments in the program reflect steady
progress with this ambitious and - so far - promising program.

The first aircraft is expected to start Block 1 flight tests later this year, intended to
validate the aerodynamic performance of the tailless air vehicle, expand the flight envelope and
demonstrate that the basic flight-test datalink, using an ARC-210 radio, functions properly.

The tailless X-45A design shares some features with the X-36 experimental UAV,
flown in 1996. The wing shape is similar, as are the trailing-edge control surfaces
and the yaw-axis-vectoring exhaust nozzle. The low-observable nozzle has no
external moving parts and is still nominally classified, although a 1994 McDonnell
Douglas patent shows a similar nozzle with internal moving ramps. The X-45 is
considerably larger than the X-36 and is autonomous, rather than being remotely
piloted, but there are enough similarities to reduce some of the basic design risks.

The two X-45As are externally representative of a production-model UCAV,

but have some internal differences. The prototypes use more metal (the
airframes are 45% composite, whereas the production aircraft will be 90%
composite) and one of the two internal weapon bays is occupied by an
avionics pallet.
Next year, following the initial tests, the second aircraft will join the first for Block 2 tests,
intended to evaluate the operational concept for the UCAV. Both aircraft will be fitted with
electronic surveillance measures (ESM) equipment supplied by Northrop Grumman's Defense
Systems Division in Rolling Meadows, Illinois, and satellite datalinks, and will be used for a
series of increasingly complex tests. These will culminate in a series of 'graduation exercises' in
which the two X-45As will work together, under the control of a single operator, to perform pre-
emptive and reactive SEAD missions.

Command and communications, and the ability to make the UCAV as intelligent and
autonomous as possible, are the core of these demonstrations. "When the enemy cuts the
communications link between the UCAV and the controller - and they will - we want to be able
to prosecute the mission," comments DARPA program manager Colonel Mike Leahy. Hunting
and targeting relocatable SAM systems, the UCAVs are working in a dangerous environment,
where a combination of stealth and tactics are essential for survival. This means, for example,
that the UCAV will have to be able to change its ingress and egress route if its ESM detects a
new threat, ensuring that it keeps its least detectable aspects towards the radar.

ESM is an important technology for UCAVs in the SEAD mission. In 1990, the state-of-the-art in
combat ESM was the Litton Amecom ALD-11, a system that weighed more than 700kg and
cost tens of millions of dollars, but could locate and identify a radar emitter in real time. Smaller,
compact radar warning receiver (RWR) systems could provide only a rough bearing
measurement. In the past few years, however, the EW industry has made great strides in
creating small, low-cost receiver systems which provide full-scale ESM capabilities for the
weight and cost of an RWR.
The UCAV system is intended to use co-operative tactics to locate and destroy targets.
Although their ESM sensors will have some ability to provide precision location data, a pair of
UCAVs will be able to pin down a target's position more quickly and more accurately if they
each detect it from different angles. Operational UCAVs will use a 'spotlight' synthetic aperture
radar (SAR) to help positively identify targets and further refine their location data: tactically, it
may make sense for one UCAV to pop-up and image the target while its robotic wingman
delivers the weapon. The key, says Col Leahy, is to make sure that the UCAV team can do this
within a timeline defined by the threat's ability to move. Block 2 tests will cover preemptive and
reactive SEAD; the latter tests will include manned aircraft to show that the UCAV can
effectively escort the manned strikers.

Within a few months, the DARPA/Boeing team expects to start detailed design of the third
UCAV prototype, the X-45B, using funds added to the program by Congress. The X-45B will
resemble the two X-45As externally, but will incorporate a number of important differences. It
will be built more like a production aircraft, with a low-cost, almost-all-composite airframe. It will
also incorporate a complete suite of LO materials, and will be used for tests to show that the
UCAV's LO systems can be maintained economically.

The X-45B could join the program as early as mid-2003, for Phase III of the program, including
three test blocks. "The big change," says Col Leahy, "is the switch in emphasis from technical
feasibility to military utility". The Phase III tests will be more complex and challenging, and will
demonstrate a greater level of autonomy, reducing dependence on the vulnerable datalink.
These tests, according to current plans, will reduce the program risk to the point where an
engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) program could start, possibly at the
beginning of FY05.

Navy milestone
Results from the DARPA/Boeing effort have been encouraging enough to support the launch of
a program to develop a UCAV for the US Navy, also with an initial operating capability date
around the end of the decade. The Navy UCAV (UCAV-N) project is also a DARPA-led effort,
and passed an important milestone at the beginning of April with the start of Phase 1B, which
will last until the end of the year and encompasses the preliminary design of the entire system,
including the air vehicle, support equipment and infrastructure. Boeing and Northrop Grumman
are the competing prime contractors in the program.

Phase 2 starts early next year and is due to run for three-and-a-half years, until late 2004 or
early 2005. The goal is to demonstrate the critical technologies for UCAV-N, including prototype
flight tests. DARPA hopes to keep both competitors in the program through this phase, if
funding permits. After 2005, the navy will take over the program and will spend time bringing
key technologies to maturity before starting EMD in 2008.

UCAV-N is more ambitious than the land-based UCAV in several respects. It is carrier-based,
which imposes a different set of operational challenges and constraints. The navy is looking for
an aircraft with a greater range and weapon load than the USAF is requesting, and also wants
the UCAV to perform a quite demanding surveillance mission. Also, the navy's concept of
operations for the UCAV is substantially different from the USAF's. The result is that the navy
UCAV will be rather larger than the USAF aircraft.

Some basic decisions about UCAV-N will be confirmed this year, according to DARPA program
manager Bill Scheuren. Both contractors plan to offer catapult-launched, arrested-landing
designs. "We could do a short-take-off, vertical landing version," says Scheuren, "but it would
be expensive". For the time being, too, both Boeing and Northrop are looking at a single vehicle
configuration for all three missions - precision strike, SEAD and surveillance. This is a
challenge in terms of vehicle cost and size, but offers the operator more flexibility than a mixed
fleet of strike/SEAD and surveillance aircraft.
The competitors are working to define a size for the vehicle. The navy wants to carry 1,800kg of
weapons on an 1,110km-radius strike mission - which is actually as much as many current
manned fighters can do - and also wants to perform a 12h surveillance mission at the same
radius, carrying sensors including a high-resolution radar. There is no navy requirement to
make the vehicle air-transportable, but the service wants to be able to ferry the aircraft from
shore bases to the carrier. The size limit is set by spot factor rather than dimensions. The
UCAV-N is to have a flyaway cost one-third of that of the navy JSF (that is, around US$12-15
million) and half the operations and support costs of the F/A-18C.

Carrier operations are a make-or-break issue for UCAV-N. Traditionally, naval commanders
regard any jet-powered, explosives-carrying unmanned vehicle approaching their vessel as a
missile, and respond accordingly. UCAV-N will be required to bring back unused ordnance to
the ship, and will have a jet-like (120kt-plus) approach speed. A ramp strike or loss of control on
approach could be catastrophic. For this reason, Northrop's privately funded Pegasus test
vehicle has now become formally part of the DARPA program.

If there is one system that makes UCAV-N practical, it is the Shipboard Relative Global
Positioning System (SRGPS), which provides landing guidance with enough accuracy to permit
automated carrier landings. SRGPS is under development as a precision landing guidance
system for all US Navy aircraft. It is an extension of differential Global Positioning System
(DGPS), which compares the aircraft's GPS data with a second GPS at a fixed, pre-surveyed
reference point to determine and eliminate sources of error. With SRGPS, the aim is not to
determine an absolute position for the aircraft but to provide an accurate position relative to the
ship deck. The system takes the ship's motion (forward, heave and sway) into account. Tests at
sea, using an F/A-18 and the carrier Roosevelt, were due to start in April. SRGPS is designed
to provide guidance to within 40cm accuracy, and values as low as 20cm have been achieved
in tests.

Deck handing will present interesting challenges. The navy is insisting that the UCAV-N should
have no special support requirements. The service wants to fly manned and unmanned aircraft
in the same landing pattern, and to be able to disengage the UCAV from the arrester wire and
move it off the landing area as quickly and easily as any manned aircraft. (One possibility is a
remotely controlled steering system.)

Another very important difference between the navy and USAF aircraft is in
the way that they will be used. The USAF plans to keep most of its UCAVs in
containers until they are needed for combat, and to conduct the minimum
amount of actual flying in support of training, tests and exercises. UCAV-N,
however, will be flown routinely in peacetime as part of normal carrier
operations, because of its surveillance role. Also, because UCAV-N launch
and recovery are an integral part of the complex ballet that is carrier operations, the navy takes
the view that the UCAV must always be operational. As a result, UCAV-N will be designed for a
much longer and harder operational life than the USAF vehicle.

Boeing has not disclosed details of its UCAV-N design. Northrop Grumman, however, regards
UCAV-N as an important opportunity and has unveiled a reduced-size test vehicle, Pegasus,
that is intended to prove the aerodynamics of the basic design and demonstrate its compatibility
with the carrier.

Ideal shape
The kite-like Northrop Grumman UCAV-N design (for further details see article
Northrop Grumman unveils Pegasus naval UCAV demonstrator) is very close to
an ideal stealth shape. The entire vehicle lies within a perimeter formed by four
straight sides, with sharp sweepback on the leading edges and significant
forward sweep on the trailing edges. The aircraft is therefore a 'four-lobe' design;
its peak radar cross-section (RCS) occurs when the illuminating radar is on a
bearing that is at right angles to one of the edges, but this phenomenon will be transient
because of the movement of the aircraft. There are no other edges in the shape - there are no
flat body sides or vertical tails - and the body is flared outwards towards the edges so that the
slope angles immediately behind the edges are very shallow. This minimizes reflections from
the edges.

The aircraft has what appears to be one of the stealthiest inlets ever designed: a shallow, wide
slit, V-shaped in plan view and aligned with the trailing edges. Ahead of the inlet is a raised
hump which helps to direct air into the inlet while masking much of its area from view - in fact,
the inlet is almost completely masked from any angle below the vehicle. The Pegasus test
vehicle has a fixed, circular nozzle, but the definitive design has a V-shaped exhaust, which
does not appear to feature thrust vectoring.

The Northrop Grumman vehicle has a simple flight control system, comprising a
pair of one-piece elevons and two sets of upper- and lower-surface 'inlay' flaps.
The elevons are used for pitch and roll control and the inlay flaps work like the
split rudders on the B-2, providing yaw control and added drag to decelerate
and increase descent angles. The Pegasus demonstrator's principal task is to
show that this configuration can be made to land safely on a carrier, which
requires very reliable and accurate control of the landing flightpath.

The Pegasus is being built by Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites company in Mojave, California.
It is a scaled-down version of the UCAV-N, powered by a Pratt & Whitney Canada JT15D
engine, and will have a maximum gross weight of 3,290kg. It will have a specially designed,
carrier-compatible landing gear (the full-size replica unveiled in March had a T-38 landing gear
borrowed from a museum) and an arrester hook. The prototype is being fitted with a scalable,
open-architecture vehicle management system developed by BAE Systems Binghamton, New
York, unit.

Pegasus is due to fly later this year and is expected to perform 12 or more missions at the
navy's weapon development centre at China Lake, California. The missions will include carrier-
type approaches, touchdowns and arrested landings.

Other UCAV programs are continuing to emerge. Boeing and the US Army are looking at a
UCAV based on Boeing's Canard Rotor-Wing (CRW) concept. The DARPA/Boeing CRW flight-
test vehicle, powered by a Williams F112 cruise-missile engine, has completed its fabrication
stage at the Phantom Works in St Louis and has been transported to Mesa, Arizona, for
assembly and flight test in the second half of the year.

The CRW concept (for further details see article Flights of fancy take shape) - which uses a
two-blade, jet-driven rotor which stops and converts to a wing for cruising flight - is simple
enough to make sense for a 2-2.5 tonne tactical UAV or UCAV. Boeing, which is also active in
the Army's Future Combat Systems project aimed at developing advanced land vehicles, has
conducted simulations of a CRW UCAV in the land-warfare environment. "It brings a different
form of agility to the land force," according to Phantom Works president-designate George
Muellner. "It can operate in the vertical mode and transit at 400kt." The CRW can land and take
off vertically, hover to take advantage of terrain cover, and yet move around the battlefield
faster than a helicopter.

So far, UCAVs have evolved with remarkable speed. The challenge is now to take the
technology through some demanding and critical tests, and convince some sceptical users that
the new systems will work.
X-45A prototype at St Louis; flight tests are
scheduled for later this year. (Source: Boeing)

Northrop Grumman's kite-like design is very

close to an ideal stealth shape. (Source:
Northrop Grumman)
The two X-45A prototypes are 45% composite
- production vehicles will be 90% composite.
(Source: Boeing)

Northrop Grumman's Pegasus test vehicle has

one of the stealthiest inlets ever designed.
(Source: Northrop Grumman)
A mission control station for Boeing's UCAV.
(Source: Boeing)

Boeing is using the T-33 as a piloted surrogate

for the UCAV to test sensors and
communications systems. (Source: Boeing)

An air vehicle storage container shown by

Boeing.
(Source: Boeing)