As long as physical limitations constrain the range and endurance of unmanned air, surface, and sub-surface vehicles, they will need to operate in conjunction with larger platforms. These motherships serve a wide variety of functions besides simply transporting, launching, and recovering unmanned vehicles. They maintain and repair the drones, recharge or refuel their propulsion sytems, and they enable data collected from unmanned sensors to be downloaded, analyzed, and disseminated beyond the line-of-sight. Characterizing the evolution of these unmanned vehicle motherships can help extrapolate how they might be used in the future.
Generation I - Ad hoc platforms: This category includes legacy naval vessels ranging in size from patrol craft (US SOCOM's MK V at right, with ScanEagle) to large amphibious ships, and likely some day, aircraft carriers. Minesweeping and hunting vessels have carried remotely operated vehicles for decades now, and autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) for the past several years. Larger legacy vessels, such as the ackwardly-redesignated USS Ponce (AFSB(I)-15), offer numerous advantages over their smaller counter-parts, including the ability to carry drones for multiple missions -- ISR and mine-hunting in the case of Ponce -- and ample manpower to operate the drones and act on the data they have gathered.
Generation II - Designed for drones: These platforms were designed to accomodate unmanned systems "from the keel up." Examples include the U.S. Navy's Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) and the United Kingdom's Type 26 frigate. The advantages of this generation of drone-carrying ships include tailor-designed and modular space for the unmanned systems; compatible launch/recovery, power, and network sytems. Importantly, dedicated crew detachments to operate and maintain drones remain necessary in an unforgiving ocean environment where operations can, and often do, go wrong.
Generation III - Drones carrying drones: The newest generation of unmanned vehicle motherships are drones themselves. France's innovative Espadon system, the U.S. Navy's CUSV (video at right), and a few other unmanned surface vessels have demonstrated unique capabilities including launch, recovery, and recharge of automous undersea vehicles. Future long endurance AUVs, such as the LDUUV will carry smaller AUVs as payload, in addition to weapons. These Gen III platforms will in many cases require their own larger Type I or II motherships to transport them to operational areas and for upkeep.
These technologies and associated operational concepts are maturing at a rapid rate, accelerated by the past decade of war. A subsequent post will cover the implications of this evolution on future naval operations.
Checking an aircraft for damage can be arduous and meticulous work, but last week’s issue of The Economist highlights an experimental commercial approach. In simple terms, the Remote Intelligent Survey Equipment for Radiation ( RISER ) drone is a quadcopter with LIDAR and forms the basis for a system to use lasers to automatically detect damage to airliners. The obvious naval application for inspector drones would be for ground-, carrier, and surface vessel-based fixed-wing and helicopter units, although the configurations for each aircraft type and location might make some more practical than others. For example it probably makes more sense to consolidate expertise in inspector drones at regional maintenance and readiness centers than to try to outfit a unit in the small helicopter hangar of every destroyer. But there’s always something to be said for an operational capability. While The Economist notes that the drones are allowed at Luton airport, UK, to “operate only
Well known authors and national security analysts Peter W. Singer and August Cole have together launched their inaugural novel, Ghost Fleet . The book contains all the components one would expect from a high tech future-war thriller: major power conflict, cyber militias, and biotech-enhanced warriors, to name a few highlights. And drones...lots of them. Unmanned naval systems in particular, play key roles throughout the book's action sequences. Some of the unmanned systems are already deployed, some are currently in development, and a few exist only in the authors' minds, but all appear to be technically feasible at some point in the near future. A Littoral Combat Ship features prominently early in the plot. The LCS serves as a mothership for the Fire Scout UAVs and a REMUS AUV which the crew creatively uses as an offensive weapon. An embarked SAFFiR robot helps LCS sailors with damage control during a combat scene. Several platforms in use today are adapted for new m
By Chris Rawley With the U.S. Navy’s UCLASS request for proposal delayed while classified requirements are again reviewed, a spectrum of opinions about the program have percolated into the public light. In his recent letter to the Secretary of Defense, Senator John McCain reinforced what seems to be the prevailing view that the Navy needs a very capable (and likely expensive) aircraft, with "a n unrefueled endurance several times that of manned fighters; a refueled mission endurance measured in days; broadband, all-aspect radar cross-section reduction sufficient to find and engage defended targets; and the ability to carry internally a flexible mix of up to 4,000 pounds of strike payload." Navy SEAL Captain Robert Newson recently advocated a lower end/lower cost UCLASS supported by the “small, smart, and many” argument. Blogger C DR Salamander also chimed in with a pragmatic argument that UCLASS requirements creep could lead the program down the same
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