The Congress continued to be very supportive of our UAV programs during its deliberations on FY1997 budget requests. Major funding increases for Pioneer, Predator and DarkStar, plus sustained funding for our support programs, will enable the Department to accelerate production and maintain investment levels to complete our UAV ACTDs.

Other Congressional Issues

Tactical UAVs. Congress has consistently supported the development of a UAV that can be placed directly in the hands of tactical warfighters. Outrider is such a system, and will be delivered for evaluation within a year of contract award.

Predator Marinization. The Navy has completed the requested feasibility study on marinizing Predator, and the report will be delivered to Congress by early 1997. This preliminary study found that:

• Predator operations can be integrated with Naval air doctrine
• Full shipboard operation could be relatively costly and require significant AV modifications (to include development of a heavy-fuel engine)
• Shipboard control of (shore-based) AV and payload could support joint littoral warfare at reasonable cost, although at some reduction in responsiveness.

HAE UAVs. The Department examined the merits of combining Global Hawk and DarkStar as a single system, and found that the most cost-effective approach was a balanced mix of the two complementary HAE UAV systems: a highly capable, moderately survivable Global Hawk and a moderately capable, highly survivable DarkStar.

The post-Cold War "revolution in military affairs" led to end-to-end reviews of capabilities needed for future warfare. Missions and functions cross a peace-contingency-war spectrum and the types and levels needed must be acquired in a resource-constrained environment. This new environment requires reexamination of roles and missions, resources available to support both modernization and sustainment of forces, and streamlined acquisition techniques to acquire more effective capabilities at lower cost.

Visions for Joint Warfighting

The Department's vision that will shape warfighting operational concepts for the next century has been documented in the July 1996 publication of the Chairman's Joint Vision (JV) 2010. With emphasis on joint warfighting, JV 2010 is the prescription for new levels of effectiveness by leveraging forces and technologies.

Joint Vision 2010 (image size: 25Kb)

The JROC's Joint Warfighting Capability Assessment (JWCA) area that includes airborne reconnaissance is Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR).1 JV 2010 argues that intelligence provided to our joint military commanders to support accurate delivery of precision munitions will be a principal requirement for continued military superiority. This key capability derives from an information-dependent operating environment.

In 1994, and in conjunction with the emergence of joint warfighting visions and the JWCA process, the DARO published its own vision, the Integrated Airborne Reconnaissance Strategy, which projected the Objective Architecture for 2010. DARO's programs are being managed to achieve this architecture, which will also conform to the Defense Information Infrastructure (DII) Common Operating Environment (COE) and the Global Command and Control System (GCCS). System technical interfaces will also comply with DARO's Airborne Reconnaissance Information Technical Architecture (ARITA) and the Joint Technical Architecture (JTA), which establish the technical interoperability "codes" for joint systems.

UAVs in Other Nations

Many of our allies and other nations have also recognized the utility of UAVs and are moving rapidly to develop their own capabilities. This offers us an opportunity and a challenge. The opportunity will come from our ability to develop and field a family of UAVs that will set the standard for performance in their class while remaining affordable. The challenge is that our UAV systems will need to interoperate with those of our allies and coalition partners to be effective in future contingency operations.

Nations with UAVs(image size: 5Kb)

1 The JWCA is an eight-area functional analysis process that employs a joint, cross-Service programmatic focus to strengthen the JCS's ability to identify the best affordable joint warfighting capabilities for U.S. military forces. The ISR JWCA interacts with the other seven areas.

UAV deployments to Bosnia, in support of joint and combined operations, are the major UAV "success story" of FY 1996. They include both operational triumphs and acquisition lessons learned. Principally, they illustrate how UAVs can contribute vital information to enhance tactical operations and strategic decision-making.

Predator Deployment #1 (1995)
Gjader, Albania

The first deployment, from July through November 1995, involved three Predators in essentially a "come-as-you-are" ACTD demo configuration, which included an electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) sensor, and C-band line-of-sight (LOS) and UHF SATCOM beyond-line-of-sight (BLOS) data links. Despite two early losses,1 the Predator system and its operators showed steady improvements in operational practices, supportability in the field, liaison with other in-theater agencies, and the military utility of imagery products. Ad hoc taskings sometimes produced better mission results than planned "point target" taskings, and several additional steps assured better image quality.

Despite its early limitations for all-weather operation, Predator helped determine the course of the Bosnia conflict. During September 1995, after several diplomatic and operational initiatives to relieve shelling and intimidation of civilian enclaves, especially in Bosnia's Sarajevo-Gorazde area, NATO forces resorted to active bombing to bring the warring factions to the negotiating table. Many previous agreements to remove field weapons from the area had been broken, but NATO forces could not hold the violators responsible without confirmation. With Predator, however, weapons movements became subject to long-dwell video surveillance, and continuous coverage of area roads showed no evidence of weaponry being withdrawn. This single ISR resource thus gave NATO commanders the key piece of intelligence that underlay their decision to resume the bombing campaign that, in turn, led to the Dayton peace accord signed in December 1995.

The needs for (1)an all-weather sensor, and (2)an all-weather flight capability, were clearly demonstrated. Other needs included a more robust communication link throughput, improved data dissemination to better exploit the near-real-time imagery products, the ability for UAV pilots to talk directly to air traffic control agencies, and a full IFF capability for the UAVs.

Predator Deployment #2 (1996)
Taszar, Hungary

When another three Predators deployed on 1March 1996, they were in a final ACTD configuration, which included:

• A synthetic aperture radar (SAR) sensor, as well as the basic EO/IR payload;
  
• A Ku-band SATCOM BLOS link, as well as the original C-band and UHF SATCOM links;
  
• Ice-mitigation features to reduce the risks of flying in poor weather;2 and
  
• A progressively expanding information dissemination infrastructure, to provide theater-wide and international access to imagery products.

(image size: 15.6Kb)
LtGen Bethurem, Commander, AIRSOUTH,
presides over Predator transition ceremony
at Taszar, Hungary, 2 Sep 96

1 One Predator was lost from hostile fire, the other from engine failure.
2 Active de-icing capabilities were installed in late-1996, and will be part of the production baseline.

Even more significant than the Predator performance "firsts" is the wide use made of its imagery, amplified by the increased network of receiving stations both in-theater and back in CONUS. The development of this dissemination capability is shown below. It first used VSATs at selected receiving sites, and then the SATCOM-based Joint Broadcast System (JBS).3

(image size: 148Kb)

The Predator-JBS network represents the first time for the simultaneous broadcast of live UAV video to more than 15 users. This provided a common picture of the "battlefield." Video imagery can be viewed either as full motion video or (as the cover shows) via a "mosaicking" technique at the ground station. Examples of single-frame Predator imagery are shown below.
Bosnia Imagery

Bosnia Imagery

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EO	IR	SAR

3 The JBS is a combined effort by the DARO, National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), and other DoD agencies

Pioneer Deployments (1995 ­ 96)

During their ten-year history of supporting contingency operations world-wide, Pioneers have deployed three times in support of Bosnia, twice afloat and once on land.

Navy VC-6 Pioneer systems have supported Sixth Fleet operations in the Mediterranean and Adriatic Seas since 1994. Most recently, one system deployed aboard USS Shreveport (August 1995 ­ February 1996) and flew three missions over Bosnia in January. Another deployed aboard USS Austin in July 1996 in support of fleet operations, and is available for contingencies ashore as needed.

On 12 June 1996, the 1st Marine UAV Squadron (VMU-1) deployed one Pioneer system to Tuzla, Bosnia, to support peacekeeping operations. They flew more than 30 missions before returning to the U.S. in October 1996.

Today, Pioneer is the Department's only marinized UAV for the near term to support contingencies.