The Future of Unmanned Aerial Systems:

Challenges to Development

Sanu Kainikara

This is an edited version of the paper that was presented at the 2014 Royal Canadian Air Force Air Power Symposium,

5-6 November 2014 in Toronto, Canada.

The Future of Unmanned Aerial Systems: Challenges to Development

Introduction

In a little over a decade, Unmanned Aerial Systems (UASs) have become an indispensable part of all military operations and, equally, a critical element to their success. Modern Western military forces are rapidly transitioning to information era warfare wherein their modus operandi is almost completely reliant on the availability of near real-time information regarding the adversary and one’s own forces. This concept of operations is clearly supported by UASs with long loiter times with sophisticated onboard equipment to carry out intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR). UASs have further been developed into combat platforms by arming them with air-to-ground missiles in order to minimise the time required to engage and neutralise a target after it has been positively identified. This concept is not new, but the employment of UASs has now reached legendary status and perceived infallibility.

Since the Gulf War of 1991, conventional forces of the Western world have been on constant alert or involved in conflicts that have almost all been irregular wars. This emphasis on the military forces of the West has been cautiously made because the technological, conceptual and operational developments regarding the employment of air power is conclusively being made by a combination of the defence industry and military forces of the Western democracies. While there are developments taking place outside of this fairly wide swathe of nations, such as in Japan, Korea, India and some others, they are not at the absolute cutting edge of the combination of technology and concepts. This could be attributed to the military forces of these nations not being actively involved in combat operations for protracted periods, which is a particularly influential ingredient for the development of capabilities.

At a foundational level there are two complementary elements that underpin developments in the employment of UASs. I will not be far off the mark when I state that historically air power is a

‘Western concept’ and has been the hallmark of Western military forces since its introduction as a weapon of war in World War I. The first element stems from this fundamental fact. Almost all revolutionary changes that have so far taken place in UAS capability development and concepts of employment have been brought about by Western air forces or forces moulded in a similar way. Given this, future developments will be directly influenced by the characteristics of the conflicts in which the Western military forces are currently involved. The criticality of the UAS contribution to battlefield success and their direct impact on combat operations have been clearly demonstrated in the irregular war that was fought in Afghanistan and continues to be felt in the on-going conflict in the Middle East. The second element evolves from this situation of a long-term involvement of UASs in land-locked irregular wars across largely uncontested airspace. Uncontested airspace cannot be taken as a reality in any future conflict and, therefore, the direction of UAS development needs to be recast if they are to retain their usefulness.

Challenges Looming in the Future

The efficacy of UASs in the battlefield primarily as an ISR asset and, in a secondary role as a rapid reaction strike platform, has been long accepted. There has also been a commensurate increase in their employment in both conflict and non-conflict operations. While the legal, moral and ethical aspects of UAS employment in the strike role are hotly debated topics, the fact is that they have become ubiquitous for the efficient employment of air power. Of this there can be no doubt. There can also be no doubt that irrespective of whether or not UASs make some spectacular leap forward in capabilities, they will continue to be a crucial element whenever military forces are employed. The advantages that they bring to the employment of military force far outweight those that might impede their employment.

So much so that there is no fear of their being made redundant.

Having laid to rest any doubts regarding the viability of UASs in military operations, I would like to analyse the more contentious challenges that confront future developments, some of which could detract from the smooth progression of the capability. I would like to divide these challenges into two broad categories: cost and operational efficacy. Here I use the term ‘cost’ in a very wide-ranging and all-encompassing manner that has a number of sub-sections to be analysed. Similarly, operational efficacy is also an overarching term that embraces a number of factors that individually and collectively challenge the future developmental prospects of UASs.

The Cost Dynamic

The cost dynamic is the determining factor in all military capability developments, and UASs are no exception. In fact, because of their fledgling nature, their development may be more prone to be influenced by considerations and analysis of the sub-sets that jointly form the cost dynamic factor. The major challenges that emanate from a consideration of cost dynamics are the impact on research and development; the spread of capabilities; financial aspects; and resource requirements.

Research and DevelopmentThe development of UASs has reached a critical

point, not in terms of the possible development of technologies that will enhance their capabilities, but in terms of resource availability to continue cutting-edge research and development. In this respect, the decision on the future of UASs will hinge on two interrelated factors. First, the inclination and ability of the leading military forces to financially support the necessary research and development; and second, the willingness of the military industry, with their commercial bottom-line, to keep pace with the capability demands of the military even when resource limitations may preclude any further development. The defence industry by itself is unable, or more likely unwilling, to bear the cost of initiating bold and innovative technological changes that would expand the traditional performance envelope of the UASs through the integration of quantum improvement in capabilities. This is perhaps too harsh a comment on the defence industry, especially since it has been built over the years as commercial enterprises that

will have to carry out a risk assessment purely based on a profit and loss analysis. Only a model of military and industry sharing the resource burden will unravel this issue.

Spread of CapabilitiesThe other input to research and development comes

from a fundamental change in the military view of UASs where they are increasingly being considered mission systems rather than purely airborne platforms—as indicated by the gradual change in terminology itself, we are today discussing UASs rather than UAVs or UCAVs—Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles respectively. The demand now is for a UAS to be able to successfully perform a mission rather than being primarily concerned with the performance of the Vehicle. This demand for it to be a system has led to UASs being loaded with a broad range of high-technology sensors and systems that broaden their capabilities. The aim now is for a single airborne UAS to be able to provide a large spectrum of capabilities that can, when required, be narrowed to achieve the focused application of the desired capability. While this broadening of the spectrum has been successfully achieved, it has come with a penalty of much higher costs than envisaged earlier. Affordability of such ‘systems’ in adequate quantities to ensure effectiveness, especially for a middle-power military force, is now a debatable point.

Financial AspectsOver the past few years, the global financial crisis

has forced governments across the world to review and recast their national budgets. Any pragmatic assessment of the national budget brings out two issues that will have a salutary effect on the military forces of the nation. First, is the obvious debate regarding whether or not the nation should engage itself in wars of choice. Wars of choice are extravaganzas that any nation can ill-afford and in times of financial stringency there is not even room to debate the issue. This is the scenario that the democratic nations face today. The second issue is related to the first. When defence budgets are reduced, as they are around the world, the secondary allocation of funds to develop a fledgling concept—albeit one that has proved efficacious at the fundamental level—will be the first to suffer. While I cannot state here with any authority that funding for further UAS development has stopped, indications are that further development of UASs are now at the crossroads. Further, the steep developmental trajectory that UASs have enjoyed in the

past two decades will decline and may even plateau in the next few years. The reduced funding is more than likely to be used to improve the resident capabilities of existing systems rather than investing in cutting edge research into unproven technologies with no assurance of a successful outcome. The focus will shift to performance enhancement rather than to system innovation.

Resource RequirementsUASs have become the preferred systems to carry

out the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) role from the air. They were also meant to ease the stress on numerically small military forces because they could be operationally deployed by a significantly reduced number of personnel. Unfortunately the reality has been somewhat different. It is indeed true that a basic unmanned aerial vehicle can be launched and retrieved by a smaller number of people than a comparative manned platform. However, the complexity of the equipment on board and the processes necessary to create the desired situational awareness from the collected data has made the operations of a UAS of the necessary calibre a highly human-intensive activity. When the resource requirement for training the necessary numbers and to ensure adequate redundancy is calculated, the UASs provide only very limited savings, if at all. Since these systems are highly specialised, life-cycle costs in terms of spares, rotables and personnel will be the same, if not more, in comparison to similar manned systems. In combination with other drawbacks this could well be the tipping point in decisions involving the future of UASs, in resource strained situations.

It seems certain that at least for the next decade, research and development of UASs will be on a slow track and the current capabilities will be further finetuned to improve the functional performance of already operational systems. It can be envisaged that emphasis will be on creating a system with sufficiently matured swing-role capability within the existing broad framework of platforms. This is the best case scenario that can be predicted.

Operational Efficacy

Before looking at the operational challenges facing the employment of UASs, it would be worthwhile to examine the advantages that they bring to the combat capability of a military force. The basic benefits are: extremely high endurance compared to a manned system; flexibility; the ability to provide timely intelligence; and sophisticated targeting capabilities. These are embellished by the ability of armed UASs to act on freshly minted intelligence, thereby reducing the ‘sensor-to-shooter’ timeframe than can be achieved by any other comparable system. However, in terms of strategy and operational concepts, the employment of UASs still has to overcome a number of issues before they can really be called ubiquitous in a battlefield. These issues can be grouped under three generic headings—survivability, combat systems, and the ability to self-deploy.

SurvivabilityThis is a complex challenge with no clear resolution

possible in the near future and has the capacity to directly impact operational viability of the UAS. There are two aspects to examining their survivability in a modern battlefield. First, the military employment of UASs have so far been limited to benign airspace environments where they have not encountered any threat to their safety. Any future conflict scenario is likely to have a more demanding air environment as compared to the recent Afghanistan-Iraq model, which has come to define the air threat scenario in the subconscious of the military forces, especially the surface forces. In a crisis, say for example in the South China Sea where the airspace will be contested, the current generation of UASs will not survive for very long and therefore their utility is almost non-existent. Second, they have so far not faced any concerted electronic attack. However, Iran has recently claimed that they ‘hijacked’ and downed a clandestine and cutting-edge RQ-170 Sentinel in the desert near Afghanistan in December 2011. If this is a true claim, then the question of the electronic survivability of UASs, of all hues and capabilities, comes up as a paramount criterion. In considering the survivability of UASs, the term ‘contested airspace’ will encompass the two environmental dimensions—physical and virtual.

Survivability has already been flagged as a key challenge to be addressed in future developments. Physical survivability would need operating at faster speeds and incorporating sophisticated self-protection

sensors within the platform. Protection from electronic attack will require the current generation of UASs to be upgraded to secure them from such attacks, and the next generation UASs, whenever they are developed, to have embedded capabilities to operate in highly contested electronic environments.

The outcome of meeting these requirements to enhance the survivability of UASs gets tied back to the cost dynamics. UASs that started life as cheap and dispensable alternatives to manned airborne platforms have now become far too expensive to be considered ‘affordable throwaways’. Even the current crop of UASs functioning at the higher end of the capability spectrum cannot be considered cheap by any standards. One of the attractions of the concept of employing UASs was its cost-effectiveness in equipment acquisition costs. However, other perceived advantages such as having almost no human risk have gradually crept into the equation, changing the emphasis to mission competency and skewing the cost-benefit analysis. When the survivability of such a system is questionable, there is also a need to revalidate the viability of the concept that has been developed to employ it.

Issues with Uninhabited Combat Aerial SystemsThere is no doubt that an armed UAS has the

ability to react and rapidly neutralise an emerging threat that gives only a fleeting window of opportunity. This can be a great advantage when the adversary is an irregular force operating within the general population. However, arming UASs has become an issue enmeshed in questions of legality, morality and ethics and therefore a politically fraught debate. The outcome is likely to be a visible slowdown in the induction of armed UASs into military forces that do not already have them and a stop to further developments in nations that are currently at the forefront of technology development in this area. It is my personal belief that the debate and questions regarding the ethics and morality of the employment of armed UASs are over-emphasised and should not be allowed to influence the development of concepts of operations. The days of the heroic mode of one-on-one mortal combat to determine the outcome of a conflict has passed. It is as outmoded today as going into combat with a knight’s armour and a battle-axe. There is absolutely nothing wrong with targeting an elusive adversary from UASs.

Keeping aside the debate regarding ethics and legality, the current set of UASs suffer from their inability to carry large payloads, especially in the form of lethal munitions. Even though their endurance

has been optimally leveraged to achieve spectacular results, the limitation of payload considerably detracts from a UAS achieving an all-round capability that can be pre-planned and programmed. In the current situation, the expenditure of the lethal ammunition in the first part of the mission would thereafter make it impossible to take advantage of the long loiter time still available to the system. When the slow transit speeds are combined to this situation, the efficacy of the UAS reduces considerably, to an extent that it may no longer be a viable option. Increasing the payload has its own penalties, particularly in the cost dynamics, and the balancing act to be achieved is a very fine one.

Military planners are already considering the use of UASs in the realm of electronic warfare (EW). While converting a UAS into an EW asset would be extremely cost-intensive, and therefore unlikely to happen soon, such a development will have immense ramifications for the way in which a conventional force conducts operations on the first day of war. There is general agreement that UASs are highly suitable to carry out the ‘dull and dirty’ missions. The ‘dull’—long duration, pedantic, plodding missions, such as ISR—has already been assigned to UASs by all military forces that have the capability. The interesting part is the concept that has been developed in carrying out the ‘dirty’ missions. These are the critically important but highly dangerous missions like the suppression of enemy air defences at the beginning of any operation. The combination of EW, targeting sensors and strike capabilities in a single platform would make it a formidable system, an effective game-changer in the application of overarching air power. Such a system could achieve a substantially higher probability of success than even the most sophisticated system that is available today.

Once again, such a system would be far more complex than any other in use today and, at least in the initial stages, be prohibitively expensive. Therefore, I am afraid this sort of a UAS will remain in the list of ‘good to have’ that all good military forces maintain, at least for the near future. Even at a later stage, if and when governments accept the need to fund extensive research and development of military technology, it is unlikely that priority would be given to a system that can carry out such a mission. The concept is great, its application very obvious, but in the real world of politics and governance, I suspect something that may not come to fruition.

Ability to Self-DeployCombat assets need to be able to deploy

independently to their assigned theatre of operations, which an UAS is still unable to do. Considering that most of the future conflicts would have an element of an expeditionary operation, this ability assumes greater importance and could even be critical. Essentially, UASs need to transit across international airspace within the existing, or a modified, airspace control system. Since international airspace control is a combined military and civil undertaking and integrates all aviation activities, it seems that independent deployment of UASs remains a faraway dream. In the absence of this capability, the UASs will consume further resources to be operationally deployed, adding to the deficit in the cost-benefit analysis.

From both an operational as well as resource requirement points of view, the military forces would consider self-deployment capabilities to be a step change that could create a quantum leap in UAS capabilities and alter operating concepts significantly. The biggest advantage of fielding such a capability would be that a military force will then be able to apply force without leaving any footprint on the ground in hostile or even friendly countries in the neighbourhood of the conflict. With this the concept of ‘global reach’ would assume a different meaning. However, the hurdles to achieving such a flexible situation are many. The technological barriers are unlikely to be overcome in the current fiscally strained atmosphere and the agreements needed to facilitate overflights of other countries similar to the commercial flights will be next to impossible to achieve in the contemporary global political scenario. Once again, the military forces have identified a requirement, but the solution remains out of their grasp, at least for the immediate future.

Conclusion

The challenges that UASs face, as they are being further developed within the constraints of a world facing innumerable resource issues, can be further expanded. However, what has been elaborated forms the crux of the matter that inhibits unimpeded expansion of UAS capabilities. I would like to finish by putting forward what in my view are the developmental requirements that UAS design and manufacturing teams must strive to achieve in order to enable UASs to become platforms that embody effective military capabilities.

First, the next generation UASs must incorporate the ability to interoperate with manned aircraft to carry out combined operations. From the currently segregated environments in which these two operate, the next generation UAS should be able to function in an integrated and synergised manner with their manned counterparts. Second, future UASs should be able to transit rapidly to and from an area of operation, which will necessitate the integration of larger and more powerful engines. The cost could become prohibitive and affordability will obviously fall. However, the ability to fly at a faster speed will also underpin the capacity to operate in conjunction with a manned aircraft.

I have so far not touched on the issue of autonomy, both a boon and a bane in both technology and concept developments. Definitive improvements in increasing the fidelity of autonomy are in the pipeline. However, at least at present there is very limited appetite for handing over significantly more decision-making and responsibility for mission control and weapon release to the UAS itself. The science fiction capabilities of automated warriors fighting one another will continue to remain just that, science fiction.

The imperatives for the future UASs are clear—they need to be stealthy and capable of high performance; they need to have the ability to carry greater and advanced payloads; they require a quantum change in onboard computing and communications capabilities to ensure that onboard processing can be leveraged; and they need to have the flexibility to be ‘swing-role’ platforms. In addition, they need to be employed under innovative concepts of operations. There are challenges to the optimisation of UAS employment, but there is no doubt that they have become a ‘must have’ capability for any competent military force, irrespective of its size.

I must end with a word of caution to all air power enthusiasts. When advocates of UASs sing their praise, I have a sense of deja-vu and find that to a great extent history is repeating itself. A hundred years ago, air power enthusiasts waxed eloquent in high rhetoric about the wonders that air power could perform and we seem to be going the same way with the UASs. Air power theorists and strategists need to be careful about what they claim can be achieved. From a UAS perspective we are today at the cusp of unleashing a capability that has the potential to create a step-change function in the conduct of war. Sadly, our doctrine and concept development has not kept pace with the advances already brought about by technology, and have not anticipated probable future developments. If this mismatch is not addressed in a concerted manner,

and without delay, I am afraid we will fail to take full advantage of this emerging air power capability. Perhaps more importantly, we will be failing to meet the expectations of future generations.