The Future of UAS

The Future of UAS

UAS technology advancements in the next five to ten years.

The biggest advancements in UAS technologies in the next five to ten years need to occur in those areas that will push the unmanned aircraft systems to be integrated in the National Airspace System (NAS). Otherwise, two things will occur.  First, the technology will move outside the United States, such as Europe, who see the potential of increasing jobs and opportunity in their countries.  Second, innovators will seek other sectors of the economy to make their contribution. 

Michael Huerta, the FAA Administrator stated at the 2016 AUVSI conference that the US government understands the implication of not moving fast enough to keep pace with the UAS community innovators, while ensuring the safe accommodation, and integration of UAS in the NAS. He is calling on industry to partner with FAA to get through the significant hurdles that include technology challenges in sense and avoid. This is a major issue requiring significant research and resources to solve.  The role out of the UAS access into the NAS from accommodation, integration and evolution will go beyond the next ten years (Huerta, 2016; Johnson, 2012).

Military vs civilian sector.

The technology breakthroughs may be initial funded by military programs in developing smaller form factor computers, software defined radios, field programmable gate arrays (FPGA), cameras, radars, LiDAR and other related systems to support sense and avoid, it will be the commercial sector that will drive the technology advancement specific to the UAS community.  There are limited military needs for the sense and avoid requirements needed for the vast number of UAS, which will operate in the NAS. 

The military operates the Group III and IV aircraft in the NAS, as they transvers from one operating area to another, the same can’t be said for the smaller UAV, which will make the bulk of the millions of drones sold in the commercial market in the coming years. For the manufacturers to be able to sell these drones, they must work with FAA to develop the technologies that will allow for the integration of the aircraft into the NAS.  Without this occurring, there will not be a UAS industry in this country.  The military may benefit from this effort, but is not directly affected.  They will continue to operate as they have in the past.

Specific advancements and missions these advancements will support.

The advancements and missions in the UAS industry will be defined in the products and services, they provide in the commercial market.  UAS will be an integral part of our daily lives once they are integrated in the NAS.  In the meantime, the regulations, such as Certificates of Authorizations//Waivers, Section 333, and Part 107 will accommodate the use of UAS in the NAS for the next five to ten years in ways that permit, even in a limited basis, the products and services that will be provided in the next five to ten years. The advancements to achieve this goal occur in the development of sensors and the software solutions to process the data and make it useful information. This is vital to commercialize the UAS industry. 

Several companies are leading the way in this area.  They are selling the service or products through cloud offerings.  While some support the insurance industry such as Airware, there are others focused in the precision agriculture using advance algorithms where were developed to process satellite imagery (Airware, n.d.; Atlas, n.d.). There are other companies using pixel-base data analysis on wind turbine system rotor blades (AirFusion, n.d.). More of these efforts need to occur in other industrial sectors to advance UAS usage in the next ten years.

References

AirFusion. (n.d.). Retrieved December 09, 2016, from http://www.airfusion.com/airfusion/

Airware The Operating System for Commercial Drones. (n.d.). Retrieved December 09, 2016, from https://www.airware.com/

Atlas. (n.d.). Retrieved December 09, 2016, from https://www.micasense.com/atlas/

Huerta, M. (2016, May 4). AUVSI Xponential Remarks. Retrieved December 9, 2016, from https://www.faa.gov/news/speeches/news_story.cfm?newsId=20294

Johnson, C. (2012, September 18). UAS Integration. Retrieved December 9, 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eUyuK0u1fc

The Future of Commercial Drone Use. (2016, March 29). Retrieved December 08, 2016, from http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2016/03/29/403149.htm

VTOL UAS Use

The Department of Defense (DoD) is focusing on vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) capability in future UAS procurements.  Richard Whittle, known for his book about the Predator UAS, this year wrote three articles about VTOL UAS.  The articles discuss DoD’s need for VTOL UAS capabilities and potential solutions in the near term.

While DoD is allowing industry to come up with innovative concepts, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is developing concepts that will produce prototypes in the coming year.  DARPA is answering the military services’ urgent requirement by building the Aerial Reconfigurable Embedded System (ARES) with the help of Lockheed Martin and Plasecki Aircraft.  The “transformer” looking aircraft is designed so that the fuselage/payload under the wing structure is modular.  Depending on the mission, the aircraft is configured to provide the warfighter the most flexibility.  By using this concept, the “useful load” will serve a small military unit in remote areas.  Described as a tilt-rotor design, the propulsion system is similar to the existing V-22 Osprey manned aircraft (Whittle, 2016b).

The Army is vocal about their need for VTOL.  Earlier this year, Gen Lundy stated that the Army has sufficient UAS to do their mission, but lack VTOL capable unmanned aircraft that can respond quicker to their operational needs.  Currently, UAS at forward operating bases are at times more than four hours from the troops they support.  Future UAS need to be runway independent and be able to support quicker.  They also will be needed to perform more than just traditional intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions (Whittle, 2016c).

The Marines are just as eager to get VTOL capable UAS.  They have requested resources in the Fiscal Year 2018 budget to develop a new sea-based, armed VTOL UAS.  Lt. General Davis believes the technology is available and that technology demonstrations can occur within a year of receiving their funds. Among the potential candidates are the Bell Helicopter V-247 Vigilant, Northrup Grumman TERN, and a tiltrotor offered by Karem Aircraft, the inventor of the Predator UAS. USMC wants to operate their future armed VTOL UAS from ships as well as from austere locations (Whittle, 2016b).

While these examples of VTOL capable unmanned aircraft focus on DoD requirements, the civilian sector will greatly benefit from these advancements.  The commercial sector, particularly those that operate in remote environments are in need of VTOL capable UAS because runways are far from their areas of operations.  While the commercialization of the V-22 Osprey has not taken off, one can expect that this will not be the case for these new VTOL UAS.   

References

Whittle, R. (2014). Predator: The Secret Origins of the Drone Revolution. New York: Henry Holt and Company.

Whittle, R. (2016a, October 26). Davis: Marines Want VTOL Drone Before FVL. Retrieved November 14, 2016, from http://breakingdefense.com/2016/10/davis-marines-want-vtol-drone-before-fvl/

Whittle, R. (2016b, October 17). DARPA Do-It-All Drone Among New VTOLs Nearing Flight. Retrieved November 14, 2016, from http://breakingdefense.com/2016/10/darpa-do-it-all-drone-among-new-vtols-nearing-flight/

Whittle, R. (2016c, January 14). Army’s Got Enough Drones; New Ones Should Be VTOL, Lundy says. Retrieved November 14, 2016, from http://breakingdefense.com/2016/01/armys-got-enough-drones-new-ones-should-be-vtol-lundy-says/