Constraining the military’s proclivity to acquire more advanced and expensive systems will facilitate research and development into more advanced survivable systems for the future, sustain current high-end capability, and allow the DOD to procure numerous additional lower-level capabilities to create greater operational flexibility. The second option encompasses fielding many smaller, less expensive, and less capable drones.īased on the anticipated future strategic and operational environment, including contested airspace, the United States should pursue the second option.
The first option advocates fielding fewer, more expensive, and more capable drones such as the Global Hawk and Reaper. Due to current budgetary limitations, the DOD has two realistic options for drone programs in the near future, and choosing between them largely depends on perceptions of the strategic and operational environment. 6Īs UASs comprise a growing portion of the defense budget, they continue to garner more interest from Congress and the military. 5 The use of drones since the 1950s has illustrated the advantages of unmanned aircraft such as eliminating the risk to pilots’ lives and enhancing aeronautical capabilities by removing human limitations and, today, unmanned systems are cheaper to procure and operate than manned aircraft, though this may change in the future. Still in a period of innovation, both in design and operation, UASs are analogous to early military aircraft, when technology and doctrine evolved at a rapid rate to exploit new capabilities.
4Īlthough drones have a long history, only in the last ten to fifteen years have advances in technology made a variety of current UAV missions possible. The UAVs are typically described as a single vehicle, including attached surveillance sensors, or as an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which generally consists of three to six air vehicles, a ground control station, data links, support equipment, and personnel. Powered, aerial vehicles that do not carry a human operator, use aerodynamic forces to provide vehicle lift, can fly autonomously or be piloted remotely, can be expendable or recoverable, and can carry a lethal or nonlethal payload. 2 The DOD currently defines unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) as: 1 They have been called drones, robot planes, pilotless aircraft, remotely piloted vehicles, remotely piloted aircraft, and other terms describing aircraft capable of controlled flight without a pilot onboard. The Department of Defense (DOD) has used drones in almost every military operation since the 1950s to provide reconnaissance, surveillance, and intelligence on enemy forces. Army “microdrone” commercial published 21 November 2016 on YouTube.
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