Unmanned Aircraft Past, Present and Future

Technical Consultant, DJ Haroon J. Qureshi gives a detailed overview of UAVs.

Unmanned aircraft, more commonly known as Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV); technology is the most infant of the defence technologies amongst the continuously evolving armada of milestone military technologies, it can possibly be equated with technological advances achieved by the Submarine, V2 rocket, Jet engine, Earth observation spy satellites and the GPS satellite based positioning systems.
UAVs are designed for a wide variety of military roles, presently this
25-year-old technology is primarily used as an airborne observer, flying over opponent’s territory; relaying live video pictures back to own forces. With no pilot in the air, the mission is practically risk-free. However, other uses of this tremendous technology include, use as an aerial target, a decoy, an anti-radar killer drone or as a cruise missile, the great advancement in control and communications technology has made the UCAV (unmanned combat air vehicle) a reality and perhaps by 2050 manned combat aircraft will form a select part of the air power and the main stay would perhaps comprise of fleets of UCAVs.
Retracing the evolution of UAVs, in the pre-UAV the US aerial electro optical reconnaissance missions were primarily tasked to the high flying (+60,000ft) U2s, till the first was shot down by a SAM-2, while it overflew USSR from Pakistan to Norway, a year later the second U-2 was shot down overflying Cuba in 1962 to picture the status of the Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba. Gary Power, the Russian shooting pilot survived to the embarrassment of the US, the pilot of the ill-fated Cuba U2 was killed, thus again fuelling a national outcry for unmanned reconnaissance; development activities for reconnaissance drones solidified again and classified work began rapidly on various, and perhaps
misdirected UAV programmes.
During the 60’s and 70’s UAVs were used extensively in combat, mainly in Vietnam for reconnaissance missions. The air vehicles were usually air launched from C-130’s and recovered by parachute. The Ryan AQM-34 Lightning Bug can be called the first of the deep penetrator UAV; these were developed from existing target drones of the time. Ryan and Northrop were amongst the pioneers in early designs, and produced jet propelled deep penetrators. UAVs were also used as attack aircraft and the operators found that the small aircraft could in many cases outmanoeuvre manned fighter aircraft giving them the ability to become excellent SAM busting decoys, that the Russians had just introduced in Vietnam to balance the US air superiority.
The impetus to operations in Vietnam came from activities perpetuated by the Cuban missile crisis, where after the shooting down of the U2, UAVs were developed for reconnaissance, however, before UAVs could become a reality the Cuban crisis had already ended. In Vietnam over 3,000 sorties were flown of which over 80% were recovered. Most UAVs performed low altitude real time photography missions. Most photography missions were still images on a camera reel that would be quickly processed within hours of the mission. Ironically though, after the end of the war interest in UAVs dwindled until the Israelis blasted the Syrian air defence system in the Bekaa Valley in 1982 using UAVs for reconnaissance, jamming and decoys.
The world saw Israel use the world’s first decoy and surveillance UAV, they employed UAVs in the 1973 Yom Kippur war on the Syrian and Egyptian fronts as reconnaissance and surveillance platforms. They were also used as decoys to draw the fire of Arab SAMs and thus deplete their missile inventories. Actually the Israeli UAVs were not as successful as popularly believed; much success came from the element of surprise. The Israeli air vehicles were not very reliable, they couldn’t fly at night, and the data link transmissions interfered with the manned fighter communications. However, at the time they proved that UAVs could perform valuable, real-time combat service in an operational environment.
Subsequent UAV developments supported other missions: real-time video, electronic intelligence (ELINT) that increased the safety of manned aircraft flying over hostile areas, electronic counter-measures (ECM), real-time communications intelligence (COMINT), and PSYOPS leaflet dropping. Some UAV missions, conducted at very low altitudes, provided critical battle damage assessments (BDA) to confirm that strike aircraft had hit their assigned targets. Whereas Israel continued to improve its UAV abilities the US did not give a special place to reconnaissance UAVs, perhaps the variety of manned and satellite assets available to the US the planners masked their vision about the power of UAVs.
The US military planners possibly erred in decision making in the 70’s, the US Army did launch a UAV programme in 1979 three years before the 1982 Israeli success in the Bekaa Valley, the US programme envisioned high-technology sensors and data links which broke new ground in detection, communication and control capability, however, very demanding specifications were set and a 31/2 year programme was defined, which had to be extended repeatedly because the super-sophisticated modular integrated communication and navigation system failed to perform satisfactorily.
Then, for reasons unknown to industry, perhaps lobbying from other somewhat competing technologies like satellites and manned surveillance aircraft technologies, the Army shut the programme down altogether. It was subsequently restarted by the Congress around 1984 but after another 2 years the programme was once again wound down in 1986 as the developed systems could not demonstrate the necessary maturity to continue; the final report of the congressional committee is interesting reading for anyone in the UAV business today on how mistaken were the decision makers in visualizing the future. Whereas Israel and South Africa continued to pursue their some what similar UAV programmes, they even today have the world’s most successful regional short/medium range UAVs.
Israel integrated a TV camera and transmission links in a UAV to get real-time imagery for target acquisition, to launch attacks with combat aircraft and long range artillery. It was these developments that enabled the highly successful and innovative 1982 air operations over the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon. Israeli Scout and Mastiff mini-RPVs conducted reconnaissance and surveillance of Syrian airfields, SAM sites and troop movements. The radar enhancing lens on the UAVs fooled the Syrian missile radars into believing that the incoming aircraft were F4s and MIR-III and drew Syrian SAM fire; the radars were then taken out with Shrike anti-radiation missiles whereas the missile batteries were taken out mostly with Mavericks before they were able to reload; these can also be classified as the world’s first manned-unmanned aircraft coordinated missions; The Israeli success was astounding with one aircraft lost against the Syrian losses of 86 combat aircraft and 18 SAM batteries. The watershed, however, was for the first time in war this century, the provision to commanders of real-time video imagery of enemy positions beyond the line-of-sight.
So impressive was the Israeli UAV technology at the time that the US Navy and Marine Corps purchased the Pioneer UAV system from an Israeli US joint venture between Malat, AAI and Israeli Aircraft Industries (IAI) in 1986. Though the system had considerable deficiencies it still remains in service.
The Congress, however, realized decision-making mistakes and ordered a joint project office (JPO) so that suitable inter-service technologies could be developed. The JPO developed a master plan which defined Classes of UAV Systems; they also described the desirable features for each kind of system. The US Air force was initially reluctant to embrace UAV’s in spite of the experience with target drone unmanned aircraft, perhaps because they have other forms of manned technologies available to them. Though in recent years the US Air Force has begun to show significant interest and is actively engaged in the development of HAE high altitude endurance UAVs previously known as strategic deep penetration UAVs, in form of Global Hawk and Dark Star.
Awareness and military-wide acceptance of the value of UAVs for military operations did not emerge again until their use in Desert Shield and Desert Storm, earlier operations in Granada and Libya identified the need for an inexpensive, unmanned, over-the-horizon (OTH) targeting, reconnaissance, and BDA capability for force commanders. The Malaat-AAI Pioneer basically served these roles with the US forces since the late 1980s.
The 1990 Gulf War allowed military planners an opportunity to use UAVs in combat conditions and found them very useful even though their performance with the equipment available at the time. In the Gulf War, with the international constitution of the allied forces, five multinational UAV
systems were used:

(1) Pioneer : US forces
(2) Ex-Drone : US forces
(3) Pointer : US forces
(4) CL-289: British forces.
(5) Mini Avion de Reconnaissance
Telepilot (MART) : French forces

Although numerous reports of great accomplishments have been cited, the UAVs did not play a decisive or a pivotal role in the war, not because of deficient UAV performance but because command and control structure was not in place to effectively use the deliverables from the UAV missions. The Marines did not fire on any RPV acquired targets during the ground offensive; according to a US naval report. The military community, however, realized of what could have been. What was learned in Desert Storm was that UAVs are potentially a key weapon system, and events in the middle-east desert have assured their continuing development. One must not however ignore the fact that three days into the war the US Air Force had complete dominance in the air and manned reconnaissance flights could be made with minimal risk.
In the Gulf War over 80% of the US manned tactical reconnaissance assets were already committed; UAVs emerged as a must-have capability. Pioneer systems provided near real-time reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition (RSTA) and BDA, day and night. They also worked with JSTARS, Joint Surveillance and Target Attack Radar System to confirm high-priority mobile targets. US Navy operated Pioneer UAVs from aboard USS Missouri and Wisconsin and launched over 150 sorties lasting 520 hours. Both RPVs and autonomous UAVs were used primarily as reconnaissance and surveillance platforms. USA, Britain and France made effective use of the Pioneer, Pointer, Ex-drone, Midge, Mart and the Canadian CL-289 platforms. Coalition tactical reconnaissance UAVs flew 530 missions remaining aloft for 1,700 hours. 12 UAVs were lost and another 28 suffered damage. The west reported that Iraq perhaps had with them Al-Yamamah, Marakeb and Sahreb UAVs — these are believed to be remotely piloted variants of the Czech Aero-Vodarchi, though there are no reports of them having been put in operation. The low loss was likely due to the small size of the UAVs and the lack of Iraqi weapons to engage them. The UAVs had limited payload, range and role flexibility, but they decisively demonstrated their usefulness in a major war scenario, by providing affordable, real-time or near-real-time intelligence direct to the commander on the spot, as a key element of the intelligence and reconnaissance systems.
A major outcome of the Gulf War was the emergence of an operational concept for obtaining theatre-wide reconnaissance and intelligence coverage on a 24-hour basis over hostile areas under all environmental conditions with minimum risk to human life. Post-Gulf War, preventing the loss of human life in combat has become a primary concern of advanced nations in conflicts. As UAVs can at least partially fulfil this political and humanitarian imperative, a niche role for them may have finally been carved.
The US/NATO operation in Bosnia was essentially one of surveillance and reconnaissance. Bomb-damage assessment was successfully accomplished after air attacks on Bosnian-Serb military facilities. Night reconnaissance has been particularly important as it is during the cover of darkness that most clandestine operations took place. The Predator was the primary UAV used in Bosnia, flying from airbases in Hungary; the Predator logged over 2,700 hours in 332 flights. These were more hours than all the UAVs in the gulf war, the objective though was to monitor and to enforce sanctions, and to provide relief to besieged Bosnian communities which demanded reconnaissance and intelligence support on 24 hours, 7 days a week basis.
Numerous sophisticated reconnaissance and surveillance systems were used, including satellites, high-altitude U-2/TR-1 reconnaissance aircraft, and UAVs. Owing to the constant threat of SAMs and anti-aircraft artillery (AAA), UAVs were introduced for tactical reconnaissance and the monitoring of opposing factions, and locating unmarked graves suspected as resulting from alleged war crimes. Although at the time the Predator was at a test and evaluation stage, five Predator UAVs were deployed from Albania and Croatia to support UN peacekeepers. Two of these were lost while operating low altitude tactical reconnaissance missions at approx 1,500 feet altitude; these losses called for a review of Predator, they were not withdrawn because the information they provided was considered essential and could not otherwise be obtained.
Finally the 2001-2 Afghanistan operations saw two key UAVs in operation, both the RQ-1 Predator and the new RQ-4 Global Hawk were in operation, it was here that for the first time armed Predators were used to engage targets of opportunity. It was learnt from the experience in the Balkans that these long endurance UAVs at times failed to achieve electro optical mission objectives, due to the presence of low clouds on top of the objective denying ground pictures. In the mid-90’s borrowing from the technology used in the SR-71, the U-2/TR-1 manned recon aircraft, special light weight variants of the Raytheon synthetic aperture radar was created for use on the Predator and Global Hawk, these synthetic aperture radars paint a near 3D ground picture using scanned radar image returns.
The Predators used in Afghanistan operated initially from US bases in Uzbekistan and later from Balochistan in Pakistan. Afghanistan was a comprehensive test of the Predators and Gnat, its CIA operated cousin, in a real operational environment. More than 7 predators and 2 Gnats were lost, most due to operational failures and perhaps none to any ground fire. But the losses surely cannot be equated by the useful coverage provided by them. During the aerial offensive in Herat, Kandahar, Tora Bora and Jalalabad, Predators were used to laze mobile Taliban and Al-Qaida groups, though it emerged that the long chain of command ending in tasking of strike aircraft to engage targets identified by the UAVs. The UAVs relying targeting info to command and control stations in the Gulf via satellite links, and the attacking aircraft already in the air were handed off target coordinates and target ID, though this reaction time was often unacceptable, as the delay gave the Taliban forces the time to dissolve in the countryside mountains.
It was perhaps for this reason that the experimental armed predator was pushed into action. The armed predators are equipped with two under wing pylon mounted AGM-114 laser guided Hellfire missiles. These engagements did not bear a worth the while successes with the elusive targets in Afghanistan; however the results were encouraging and the experience finally helped CIA engage and eliminate a car with 6 alleged
Al-Qaida high ups 160 kms east of San’a in Yemen in October 2002. The CIA operated RQ-1 Predator reportedly took off from Djibouti in the Horn of Africa and must have loitering in the air for many hours stalking the unknowing prey on the ground. This engagement is a forbearer of things that may come in the future.
The RQ-1 has the ability to provide local line of sight live air to ground information link in a range of less than 200 kms, is also has a satellite based over the horizon link to report to operation base across the continent.
The large Boeing 737 sized Global Hawk RQ-4 had mixed blessing in the Afghan engagement, of the less than 5 operational Global Hawks available world wide, two were lost in 2002. Both reportedly crashed in Balochistan, reportedly due to technical problems. The role of RQ-4 is more strategic than tactical, like collecting information about troop buildups, missile movements, new site developments etc. The present satellite imagery provides resolution of better than 1 meter, these satellites operate in circular LEO low earth orbits at altitudes of approx 400-2,000kms with short orbital periods limiting their presence over target to a few minutes at a time — compared to this Global Hawk which operates at around 15 kms and Predator at around 6 kms can stay on target for many hours at a time and provide a much higher EO picture resolution.
It seems that for the next 10 years Predator and Predator variants will remain the work horse of UAV deployments. The recent induction of large volumes of AAI Shadow 200 in the TUAV programme will see more tactical deployment of these new systems. The Shadow 200 replaces the 15 year old Pioneer.
An interesting experience closer to home has been the deployment of the Israeli Seeker II with the Indian Air Force. They have been operating at altitudes of around 3-4 kilometres in Azad Kashmir and have even ventured deeper into Pakistan as far deep as Sheikupura and Kharian. Pakistan is evolving techniques to engage this threat and in due course the UAVs will not have a free joy fly over enemy territory. Pakistan itself has made limited deployment of its home grown UAVs in tactical roles at the peak of India-Pakistan stand off in 2001-2. The shooting down of an Indian Seeker-II by an AIM-9L sidewinder fired from an F-16 is perhaps the first air combat engagement of a manned and unmanned aircraft.
Military strategists have clearly seen the great potential this technology offers in achieving defensive and offensive military plans. In my opinion the ultimate application concepts are yet to come. Since early 1990 umpteen military nations have entered a fray of development activity to produce UAVs. The list includes Israel, USA, UK, Russia, France, South Africa, China, Spain, Italy, Turkey, India, Pakistan, Iran and Malaysia, Taiwan and Australia.
It can be said without reservation, that UAVs will play a key role in most future military conflicts, be it an open war or peace keeping, and militaries that take an earlier cognizance of this and effectively harness the use of this technology will be strategically better placed in a military conflict.
It can be seen that UCAVs will find a permanent place in future arsenals of military nations. The Part-II of this paper looks at the US UCAV programmes that are like an index of things to come. Presently, Boeing and Northrop Grumman are developing products under Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and USAF and USN managed programmes.
The first flight of a US unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) on May 22, 2002 was a major milestone for those potentially transformational new pilots less aircraft. Boeing’s X-45A technology demonstration aircraft flew for 14 minutes on this day, and was set to fly again in November 2002 as a part of a multi-year flight test effort. Basic flight performance along with command and control link between aircraft and mission control station has been successfully demonstrated. The X-45A is an initial demonstrator for the UCAV system being developed for DARPA and USAF.
The objective of the DARPA/USAF programme is to demonstrate the technical feasibility, military utility and operational value of an affordable and reusable stealthy UCAV that could conduct suppression of enemy defences (SEAD) and strike (destruction of high value targets) missions using air-to-surface weapons, with a goal of an operational squadron by 2008.
There is also a separate DARPA/USN Advanced Technology Demonstration programme, slightly behind the DARPA/USAF programme, unlike USAF UCAVs, which will be stored as “silver-bullets” and used selectively in the air campaigns, the DARPA/USN effort aims to develop a slightly larger stealthy UCAV with a longer range that would be based routinely on an aircraft carrier.
UCAV-N’s primary mission would be reconnaissance over heavily defended areas. It would take off and land like a manned carrier aircraft using catapults and arresting gear, this presents greatest challenges in the UCAV-N development effort. The unmanned aircraft’s recruitments call for it to fly persistent surveillance missions or more than 12 hours. SEAD and deep strike would be secondary missions for the UCAV-N.
The UCAV-N fits Navy’s long term strategy released early this year for a family of unmanned vehicles (UAVs) to be used for surveillance missions, including the Global Hawk like UAV for broad area maritime surveillance. UCAV-N would fill the role of a stealthy surveillance aircraft that can operate over heavy enemy defences.
On May 8, 2002 DARPA awarded a US$ 10 million Phase-II contract modifications to Boeing and Northrop Grumman to continue working on their respective X-46 and X-47 UCAV-N designs and operational concepts. The two companies previously conducted Phase-I preliminary design and trade off study contracts in 2000-2001. Phase-II is divided into Phase-IIA advanced technology development is to be completed in October 2004 and Phase IIB flight demonstrations extending to mid-2005. The Navy may only fund one company for flight demonstrations.
Boeings X-46 design has a bat-wing shape like a scaled down B-2 (Northrop Grumman) stealth bomber. Northrop Grumman says that X-47 is a scaled up version of its diamond shaped X-47A Pegasus technology demonstrator. Grumman has funded Pegasus with company funds to demonstrate the aerodynamic qualities, such as a low speed handling, suitable for autonomous operation from an aircraft carrier. The tail-less kite shaped X-47A measures 28 feet long and has a 28 foot wing span. Pegasus is powered by an off the shelf Pratt & Whitney JT15D turbine engine. The X-47B operational design will be scaled up from the X-47A and will be powered by a turbofan engine to allow it to carry a sizable load. The first flight of Pegasus is expected later before the end of 2002.
AIR FORCE PROGRAMME: Boeing has built the X-45A that will start flying later before the end of 2002. The X-45A is 26.5 ft long with a 33.8 foot wingspan. Boeing is designing a larger X-45B, 36 feet long with a 47 foot wingspan demonstrator aircraft, which will join the flight test programme in 2005. Three aircraft will be built.
The X-45B will closely represent the operational system as now envisioned, with two internal weapons bays, integrated avionics and low observability features It will be use a GE F404-102D jet engine which is a variant of the engines used in Navy’s FA-18 fighters. The present X-45A though uses the smaller Honeywell F124 engine.
The two X-45s will fly together in 2003 to demonstrate coordinated flying, communication between multiple UCAVs, and cooperative targeting. Such multi-aircraft flight tests will essentially be the technical heart of the programme and the key to the transformational potential of the revolutionary weapon system. By late 2005 exercises would be conducted using three X-45Bs manned aircraft and X-45A UAVs operating together as a joint strike force.
The USAF UCAV would carry two target acquisition sensors; an ESM system, which can passively detect air defence radar emissions and determine the radar location by obtaining line-of-bearing measurements; synthetic aperture radar (SAR) would take high resolution still frame photo like image of the radar target through clouds and adverse weather.
Typical missions would include a flight of the 4 UCAV, of which three would hunt targets as a pack controlled by a single operator in a ground station. Airborne UCAVs would jointly triangulate the location of the enemy radar using secure line of sight links to communicate with each other. UCAVs would then send high resolution SAR images back to a mission control station to verify a target before the commander gave approval for the UCAVs to attack it.
USAF UCAV which will have a mission radius of 500-1000 miles and will carry a weapons payload of 1000 to 3000 pounds comprising of 500 or 1000 pound GPS guided JDAM joint direct attack munitions or twelve 250 pound small diameter bombs now under development. A lighter payload or shorter range mission would allow a longer loiter time over hostile territory.
UCAVs will not do formation flying with manned aircraft; for collision-avoidance and safety reasons, the UCAVs will fly many miles away from the fighters, and far from each other, as a lead element of a strike package, suppressing air defences ahead of manned strike fighters.
The X-45B will be fieldable prototypes and have been funded to complete the development and delivery of 14 X-45B’s by 2008.
NAVY PROGRAMME: The UCAV-N requirements call for a 2000 mile surveillance radius and a 1000 mile strike radius; this could cover all the targets in Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq from an aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea without aerial refueling. UCAV-N will carry a number of different surveillance sensors, electro optical/infrared, ESM and radar with both SAR and ground moving target indicator modes. Like the USAF X-45B and UCAV-N will have two weapon bays, but they will carry up to 400 pounds of bombs on strike missions.
The cost of UCAV-N will be one third that of the F-37 Raytheon JSF fighter and will be operable at 50% the cost compared to the F/A-18C. The plans to enter into a formal acquisition programme by 2004.
ARMY UCAR: Army also has plans with DARPA to exploit UCAV technology; however Army objectives call for a vertical take-off and landing aircraft, an unmanned helicopter, to carry out Army Aviation’s reconnaissance and attach capabilities. Late May 2002 DARPA and the Army awarded four industry firms or teams US$ 3 million, one year contracts for the first phase of the Unmanned Combat Armed Rotorcraft (UCAR) programme. Those four companies/groups are Boeing, Lockheed and Bell Textron, Grumman-Sikorsky and Raytheon.
During Phase-I each team will conduct mission effectiveness and affordability trades to develop and optimize an objective system, design. The UCAR will not have a dedicated mission control station, but would be controlled by Airborne Command and Control System controllers onboard manned helicopters, such as the Comanche or the UH-60 Black Hawk, though these systems would be operable by ground-based command centres as well. The UCAR systems will operate autonomously and will rely on a human controller for tasking and final weapons release authorization. UCAR will carry ground strike weapons to engage ground targets.
After Phase-I, DARPA will decide whether to proceed with two firms into a nine month Phase-II. The contractors will each complete the preliminary design of their demonstration system, which will be tested in a subsequent development phase. A final system concept will be tested during a system maturation phase. The programme will be transferred to the Army by 2009. Army plans to field UCAR by 2015. It is estimated that UCAR will cost US$ 8 million per example, approx 1/3rd of a Comanche helicopter.
UCAV development programmes should begin to answer a lot of questions about operational utility, affordability, and drawbacks of these pilotless systems after many years of optimistic speculation about them within the services.

The Author
Haroon J. Qureshi is a US educated electronic engineer. he is the managing director of East West Infiniti (Pvt) Ltd., and a leading electronics company in the private sector which has been involved in the design, production and induction of defence electronic products in the Pakistani Armed Forces. A company he co-founded in 1984 after his return from USA. He has a BSEE from UET Lahore and MSEE from UCSJ California USA.
Hailing from a military family. A keen technology watcher and enthusiast, he has been involved in the design and development of some major force multiplier and military product upgrades in Pakistan, including ground to air radio equipment, unmanned aircraft, anti-aircraft missile trainers, positioning systems and RF data products.
He is a visiting speaker at the engineering universities and keenly supports electronic projects at these institutions, an Amateur Radio operator (AP2HJ), a model aircraft hobbyist and a musician. Member of IEEE, AIAA, ARRL, PEC and PSI.