The following is the March 2015 Pentagon Inspector General report — released last week — on the use of military unmanned aerial vehicles over U.S. soil. Read More
Tag Archives: UAV
U.S. Navy Confirms ‘Abnormal and Unprofessional’ Iranian UAV Recon Flight Over Carriers Truman, Charles de Gaulle
Screen shot of an Iranian video claiming to be spy footage of USS Harry S. Truman from an Iranian UAV.
Officials at U.S. 5th Fleet confirmed to USNI News Iranian forces flew an unmanned aerial vehicle over French carrier Charles de Gaulle (R91) and USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) earlier this month in a Friday statement to USNI News. Read More
U.S., U.K. Navies Expanding Experiments Using 3D Printing
A 3D printed aircraft has successfully launched off the front of a Royal Navy warship and landed safely on a Dorset beach off HMS Mersey. UK Royal Navy Photo
LONDON — While U.S. Navy sailors have trialed the use of additive manufacturing (3D printing) technology to build a miniature quadcopter aboard USS Essex (LHD-2) and fly it around the hanger deck, it’s their British counterparts who were first to launch a 3D-printed fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle from a ship. Read More
The Next Act for Aegis
USS John Paul Jones (DDG 53) launches a Standard Missile (SM) 2 during a live-fire test of the ship’s Aegis weapons system on Feb. 8, 2014. US Navy Photo
The U.S. Navy’s Aegis program was born as the solution to a physics problem: Given that hostile variable-geometry wing Soviet Tupolev Tu-22M Backfire bombers travel at speeds approaching Mach 2, what would a ship-based radar and missile system need to do to hurl an object into the air to intercept an object flying at almost twice the speed of sound?
Document: Pentagon’s Unmanned Systems Roadmap
Northrop Grumman MQ-4C Triton. US Navy Photo
Unmanned systems continue to deliver new and enhanced battlefield capabilities to the warfighter. While the demand for unmanned systems continues unabated today, a number of factors will influence unmanned program development in the future. Read More
Navy Shifts Plans to Acquire a Tougher UCLASS
The X-47B on the deck of the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) on Nov. 10, 2013. US Navy Photo
The U.S. Navy appears to have shifted its position on the requirements for its next generation carrier-based unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), Navy officials told USNI News.
Instead of developing the planned Unmanned Carrier Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) to only conduct operations in uncontested airspace, the service will instead pursue a design that can be adapted over time to operating against higher threat levels.
The Unmanned Iranian Revolution
In an apparent reaction to the recently concluded multinational minesweeping exercise in the Persian Gulf and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s appearance before the United Nations, Iran released film and video of its latest unmanned aerial system (UAS). Iran calls the new UAS Shahed-129 (or Witness-129). The Guardian news website provided the following transcript of Iranian television coverage of the Shahed-129 flight demonstration: “The new drone . . . can carry out combat and reconnaissance missions with its 24-hour non-stop flight capability.” The transcript goes on to report, “home-made aircraft is capable of hitting targets at a distance of 1,700-2,000 kilometers… [and] can be equipped with electronic and communication systems including cameras which can capture and send live images.”
Images from Iranian television of the Shahed-129.
While the Shahed-129’s flight performance claims may be exaggerated, the system nonetheless will join several other indigenously manufactured Iranian unmanned aircraft. For U.S. sailors operating in the Persian Gulf sightings of Iranian-built drones are a common. The fact is, Iran has been manufacturing reconnaissance drones since the 1980s, when they began building and flying the Mohajer systems during the Iran-Iraq War. The Mohajer was followed by a line of indigenously built systems such as the mass produced Ababil. The smaller Ababil UAS has been exported to Hezbollah forces, who used it against Israel in the 2006 conflict in southern Lebanon. More recent reports indicate that Syrian government forces may be using this system to locate and target rebel forces in Syria. The Ababil also made headlines in February 2009 when an Iranian controlled drone was shot down by a US F-16 after making an incursion into Iraqi airspace. So clearly then the, Shahed-129 is just the latest in a long line of Iranian built systems that Iran routinely operates. By all appearances, robotic systems have been part of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s military arsenal since the early days of the revolution.
Pigeon Holes or Paradigm Shift: How the Navy Can Get the Most of its Unmanned Vehicles
Proceedings, July 2012
The U.S. Navy must combine innovation with tested ideas to make the most of its unmanned aerial vehicles.
The process of assimilating a new technology is a complex one for any organization. Besides facing the resistance of those who view it as a threat, the technology’s full potential often remains unrealized because of a failure of imagination. Instead it is forced, at least initially, into existing functions and slotted into established intellectual “pigeonholes.” Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been subjected to this sort of thinking. The U.S. Navy should consider them as more than mere unmanned versions of existing aircraft and take full advantage of this new tool.
In the original version of the film Star Wars , Luke Skywalker piloted an X-wing fighter with his trusty droid R2-D2 in the back. Single-seat aviators of the 1970s noted with some glee the allegorical reference to an automated naval flight officer. It appeared that the function of piloting was inherently human; system management was something a robot could handle. However, even at their current stage of development, the flight of unmanned aircraft is considerably more automated than, say, radio-controlled model airplanes, which indeed must be “flown.” UAVs such as the Northrop-Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk are capable of autonomous takeoff, navigation, and landing. It is the pilot function that has been automated; the naval flight officer function still requires a human to make decisions.
This is the leading edge of a “paradigm shift”: pilotless aircraft operated by pilotless squadrons or perhaps by no squadrons at all. The shift may go further, possibly obviating the need for any kind of winged specialist. After all, the Navy has been operating a large fleet of highly lethal unmanned aircraft since the 1950s, controlled almost exclusively by surface warfare officers. These aircraft are called missiles.
