C:\WEBSHARE\WWWROOT\GLOBAL~1\SURVEI~1\1998.HTM

1998 Airborne
reconnaissance

a vision for the 21st century

An update on the implementation of the United States Airborne Reconnaissance
Objective Architecture for the 21st century by Major General Kenneth R. Israel,
US Air Force, Director, Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Office at the US
Department of Defense.

The US vision for information dominance, part of joint Vision 2010, was recently summarised by former Air Force chief of Staff General Ronald Fogleman: "In the first quarter of the 21st century, [we] will be able to find, fix or track and target in near real-time anything of consequence that moves or is located on the face of the Earth...". This is more than a vision it is an imperative. As US armed forces become constrained by shrinking budgets, more must be achieved with less. Securing this vision of information dominance will ensure that US forces have the critical information necessary to prevent conflict. In addition, when conflict is necessary this vision will ensure situational awareness, giving US forces a complete view of all forces in the battlespace. The enemy will be defeated quickly with minimal casualties to US forces, its allies and coalition partners.
The Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Office (DARO) is charged with ensuring that the airborne reconnaissance force supports joint Vision 2010 and information dominance. DARO is developing and implementing an objective architecture with a balanced mix of manned and unmanned airborne reconnaissance systems working with US overhead reconnaissance satellites to provide all-weather day-and-night collection. These systems, in conjunction with associated processing, exploitation and dissemination capabilities, provide seamless intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) to the warfighter that is the key to information superiority. Much has been achieved since DARO was established in 1993 but many challenges remain.

Unmanned aerial vehicles

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been around for some time, in fact US intelligence depended on them in Vietnam but only during the past few years have they assumed a high profile. UAVs continue to prove their military utility as exemplified by the use of the Pioneer UAV in Operation Desert Storm and Pioneer and Predator in Bosnia. In fact, at the Global Air Chiefs' Conference celebrating the 50th anniversary of the US Air Force, General Fogleman noted that in future we can expect to see unmanned aerial vehicles playing an increasing role in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance and evolving into strike platforms.
To maximise the utility of these critical Systems a family of UAV systems have been developed with complementary capabilities to meet warfighter needs at all levels that can be divided into two broad categories: tactical-support for army battalions, brigades and light divisions, marine regiments and deployed navy units with reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition and battle-damage assessment; and endurance-support for joint force commanders and theatre and national command and control nodes with long-range, long-dwell intelligence via deep penetration and wide-area surveillance.
Dr Jacques Gansler, the US Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology, said during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee that the two major defence challenges were modernising US forces with the right weapons for the nation's early 21st-century security needs and paying for this modernisation within a constrained budget.
The UAV family looks certain to meet both of Dr Gansler's challenges.
Many emerging US UAV capabilities are developed as advanced concept technology demonstrations (ACTDs). This process allows for speedy integration of mature technologies, gets systems to the field where the warfighter can evaluate their military utility and provides feedback to system developers. For example, the Predator UAV, well known for its continuing support of US and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) forces in Bosnia, is a product of the Department of Defense's first-ever ACTD. As Predator enters full production two additional ACTDs are being pursued, one for tactical UAVs and one for high-altitude endurance UAVs.

Left: Alliant Techsystems Outrider Tactical UAV. Right: TRW/IAI Hunter UAV

Tactical UAVs

In the tactical regime, an ACTD is underway to field a UAV that supports the range of requirements for ground and naval tactical commanders - a formidable challenge. The focus of this ACTD is the Outrider Tactical UAV, under development by Alliant Techsystems.
Outrider has faced numerous challenges during its development, including technical integration issues with a new engine and budget issues with the US Congress. Despite these challenges by early November 1997 Outrider had flown successfully eleven times and, its technical difficulties solved, Outrider is on target for delivery to the warfighter for military utility evaluation in 1998.

Pioneer UAV, Inc. RQ-2A Pioneer UAV

While Outrider development continues, the Pioneer UAV, Inc. RQ-2A Pioneer UAV and the TRW/IAI Hunter UAV remain in service. Pioneer was procured in 1985 as an interim capability to provide gunfire support to battleships. Following its recent return to Bosnia with the US Marine Corps, Pioneer became the longest-serving UAV in the US military's inventory accruing over 15,000 flight hours. It is expected to continue in service until 2004.
The TRW/IA Hunter UAV although not a deployed system, is used by the US Army for the development of new concepts of operations for UAVs and to support exercises. In March 1997 Hunter served as a surrogate for the Outrider Tactical UAV during a Task Force XXI advanced warfighting experiment at Fort Irwin, California. The experimental force (EXFOR) acclaimed Hunter as a high payoff system that located, targeted and assessed intent and movement of the opposing force (OPFOR) with deadly accuracy. The constant presence of the UAV forced the 2,400-strong OPFOR to alter its tactics substantially and spend valuable time concealing its movements while searching the sky for the watchful Hunter. Everyone at this exercise appreciated the ability of the UAV to see the battlefield correctly. The EXFOR commander said that this UAV was his most flexible system and that he would not want to go to war without tactical UAV support. Its military utility was described as "powerful, dominant, critical". Tests to explore the UAV's ability to hear the battlefield as well as see it will involve demonstrations of lightweight signals intelligence (SIGINT) payloads on Hunter.
Also of interest is the use of vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) capability to support marine and navy requirements. In 1998 a demonstration of commercially available VTOL UAVs will be conducted to evaluate their performance against stringent requirements. A broad agency announcement invites industry to participate in this demonstration planned for March-June 1998

Endurance UAVS

Also being pursued is a high-altitude endurance UAV ACTD that will introduce two complementary long-endurance reconnaissance systems to the warfighter: the Teledyne Ryan Aeronautical RQ-4A Global Hawk and the Lockheed Martin RQ-3A DarkStar.
Global Hawk is characterised as highly capable and moderately survivable. It will be able to fly 3,000 nautical miles to an area of interest and loiter at over 60,000 feet for up to 24 hours, delivering critical electro-optical, infrared and synthetic aperture radar imagery to the warfighter. Rolled out in February 1997, the first Global Hawk air vehicle completed static tests at Teledyne Ryan's San Diego, Califomia facilities. The air vehicle was transported to Edwards Air Force Base, California in September 1997 for final testing prior to its first flight in November 1997.

Teledyne Ryan Aeronautical RQ-4A Global Hawk UAV

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Lockheed Martin RQ-3A DarkStar UAV

DarkStar is Global Hawk's complement, being less capable but highly survivable. DarkStar's use of stealth technology will allow it to approach well-defended areas unseen by an enemy. DarkStar's successful first flight in February 1996 was the first fully autonomous flight of a UAV from take-off to landing. Unfortunately, DarkStar crashed on take-off during its second flight in April 1996. Since then numerous design changes have been implemented and preparations are underway for DarkStar's return to flight early in 1998.
After the completion of initial airworthiness testing in 1998, these UAVs will be delivered to the warfighter for an assessment of their military utility along with their common ground segment, a ground control and dissemination capability developed by Raytheon F-Systems. If Global Hawk and DarkStar contribute effectively to Joint warfighting capabilities they could enter production and operational service between 2003 and 2004.

Predator

The General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc.'s RQ-1A Predator medium-altitude endurance UAV is perhaps the most well-known UAV in the fleet. With both tactical and endurance characteristics, Predator has been deployed to Bosnia for 18 consecutive months and by November 1997 had accrued over 2,300 flight hours in support of US and NATO forces with critical electro-optical and infrared video intelligence.

General Atomics RQ-1A Predator UAV

The NATO Stabilisation Force (SFOR) director for intelligence recently called Predator his best surveillance asset. Operated by a detachment of the US Air Force's 11th Reconnaissance Squadron at Taszar, Hungary, Predator provides video throughout the European theatre using the Joint broadcast service (JBS) that employs commercial satellite communications to offer a customised CNN-like capability that can be displayed at a commander's desktop.
As the residual assets from the Predator ACTD continue to operate in Bosnia, Predator will enter full production during 1998 and provide additional capabilities to the warfighter, including full de-icing, improved engine performance and enhanced identification friend or foe (IFF).

Tactical control system

The tactical control system (TCS) is an initiative to provide warfighters with an inter-operable and scalable command, control, communications and data dissemination system for the family of tactical UAVs to include Outrider and Predator and data receipt and dissemination capability from the high-altitude endurance UAVs, Global Hawk and DarkStar.
Initiated at the direction of the joint requirements oversight council in 1996, TCS provides an integrated system of hardware and software functions that give a range of capabilities to the warfighter. The user can programme a flight route into the UAV fly the route, control the payload, receive payload information and/or disseminate data or imagery transmitted from the air vehicle. TCS will provide real-time reconnaissance information through joint and service-specific control, command, communications and intelligence (C4I) systems that are essential to warfighters. A series of advanced warfighter, joint and service-specific exercises and demonstrations are underway to define the TCS requirements, specifications and concept of operations and to determine its military utility. A prototype TCS was used during 1997's Task Force XXI advanced-warfighter experiments to receive and disseminate imagery from UAVs in flight. Continuing exercises and demonstrations will focus on connectivity with the user's C4I systems and help further define those interfaces.

Lockheed Martin U-2 Dragon Lady

Manned airborne reconnaissance

Although there has been a great deal of focus on UAVs in the media this year, it should be noted that the US also has at its disposal a robust fleet of manned systems that fly the bulk of present airborne reconnaissance missions. As objective architecture approaches, new capabilities are being integrated on manned systems to provide enhanced intelligence to the warfighter. Upgrades to manned aircraft sensor suites are planned to be as common as possible with projected UAVs. Key achievements in manned systems include:
Twenty-seven of the fleet's Lockheed Martin U-2 Dragon Lady aircraft have been re-engined and the remaining eight aircraft are scheduled for completion in the first quarter of fiscal year 1998.

Improvements are also under way on two U-2 imagery collection systems: the advanced synthetic aperture radar system 2 (ASARS 2) and the senior year electro-optical reconnaissance system (SYERS).
The ASARS 2 improvement program (AIP) is underway to enhance the U-2's synthetic aperture radar-imaging capability. By 2001 there will be 12 upgraded AIP sensors plus spares in the inventory. AIP adds a number of improved sensor capabilities including geo location accuracy sufficient to support precision-guided munitions, artillery and long-range stand-off weapons. AIP also will add an on-board processing capability with the latest technology to provide wide-area, moving-target indication (MTI), increased broad-area search capability and enhanced image quality for use in target identifications and battle-damage assessment. With post-processing, AIP will be able to perform interferometric SAR collection for improved terrain mapping as well as coherent change detection. AIP is also important for the Global Hawk UAV because the radar is approximately 85 per cent common with that of Global Hawk.
The U-2 SYERS multi-spectral imagery (MSI) upgrade will add a seven-band MSI capability and increase the SYERS inventory from four to six sensors. These improved sensors will begin delivery in fiscal year 1999. The MSI technology is directly transferable to projected UAV capabilities.

P 3 antisurface warfare improvement program

The U-2 is not the only system to benefit from an AIP. Lockheed Martin is upgrading 26 US Navy P-3C aircraft under the antisurface warfare improvement program (AIP). This AIP will expand the P-3C's role to include surface attack and over-the-horizon targeting and reconnaissance. The upgrade includes forward-looking infrared (FLIR), improved radar and electro-optical sensors. The first AIP aircraft was delivered in early 1997. Upgrades are expected to continue at the rate of 10-12 aircraft each year.

P-3C Antisurface Warfare Improvement Program

EP-3E ARIES II

Joint SIGINT avionics family

A modular family of signals intelligence (SIGINT) collection systems is being developed that will be interoperable and scalable for use throughout the US airborne reconnaissance fleet. The navy's EP-3E ARIES II aircraft has been selected as the high-band prototype (HBP) platform for the joint SIGINT avionics family (ISAF).

An EP-3E aircraft is being modified to support HBP flight testing that was scheduled to begin in December 1997. As the SAF suite of hardware and software is validated it will be implemented on other collection platforms, including UAVs.

RC-12 Guardrail

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RC-7 Airborne Reconnaissance Low

Aerial common sensors

A migration to multi-intelligence platforms is an essential part of airborne reconnaissance objective architecture. The US Army is developing the aerial common sensor (ACS) intelligence system to replace the RC-12 Guardrail common sensor (GRCS) and RC-7 airborne reconnaissance low (ARL) platforms. ACS will be a true multi-intelligence system, combining the capabilities of the GRCS and the ARL. Available sensors will include infrared, electro-optical, synthetic aperture radar (with MTI capability), electronic intelligence (ELINT), and communications intelligence (COMINT). ACS will be compatible with the JSAF family of ELINT and COMINT hardware and software. The mission-needs statement for ACS was approved by the US Army in July 1996 and the operational requirements document is under final review by the US Army training and doctrine command (TRADOC).

What's next?

Although there have been some remarkable developments in airborne reconnaissance over the past few years, there are many challenges ahead that must be met if the ISR mission is to succeed and evolve new roles for the 21st century. For example, a heavy fuel engine (HFE) is required for tactical UAVs. The use of heavy fuel is critical to ensure that a safe, reliable source that is common to other aircraft systems can be used. Heavy fuel is particularly crucial for maritime UAVs because the need to store additional fuels wastes valuable space and weight. The defence advanced research projects agency (DARPA) is undertaking to develop this technology for the warfighter.
The value of video intelligence is being explored but the problems of how to store, index and quickly retrieve relevant video products have not yet been tackled fully. Some estimates state that early in the next century over 90 per cent of pixels collected will be from video sources. Standard formats and data compression (such as MPEG) will help reduce the video storage burden but search and retrieval functions must be addressed. The image product library (IPL) program sponsored by the national imagery and mapping agency (NIMA) seeks to provide these capabilities.
Methods are being sought for quantifying the military utility of airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance through modelling and simulation. This is necessary so that force mix trade studies can be performed to help determine the optimal mix of assets, both manned and unmanned, and so meet the needs of the warfighter. Effective modelling and simulation tools are required to illustrate the benefits of ISR at campaign level. Finally there is a need to protect airborne reconnaissance systems from requirements creep because the danger of developing new concepts and new missions is that such systems, particularly emerging UAVs, may be required to accomplish too much.
The capability, interoperability and flexibility of airborne reconnaissance objective architecture will give US forces, and those of its allies, a huge advantage in conflict. This advantage will be seized to avoid combat wherever possible and to achieve victory quickly and decisively when combat cannot be avoided.

For more information on the Defence Airborne reconnaissance Office and on US airborne reconnaissance saystems there is a world wide web site http://www.acq.osd.mil/daro

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