Unmanned Aircraft Systems Roadmap 2005-2030 - Federation of ...

UAS ROADMAP 2005
Displays that show intent, as well as the algorithms which develop the intent, must be matured.
Currently ground-breaking work in this area is being undertaken by J-UCAS and AFRL; work needs
to be accomplished to migrate this technology to smaller and less expensive systems. These displays
must also show the operator what is going on at a glance, and must fit into the lightweight system
requirements as outlined above. Additionally, significant work has been accomplished to improve
man-machine interfaces in non-UA programs and these improvements (such as tactile stimulation to
improve situational awareness) need to be investigated as part of the UA C3 and ground control
processes.
� Voice Control. One area that might not be receiving the attention it deserves is the capability to voice
command the UA. Voice recognition technology has been around for years, but only recently has
algorithm and hardware advances made it practical for small and critical applications. DoD Science
and Technology (S&T) organizations continue to research and develop this technology. DoD
programs can also begin taking advantage of developments in the commercial sector to have the
operator interface with a UA via voice. Now is the time to harvest that research and apply it to
reducing the complexity of command and control interfaces to small UA.
� Multi-Vehicle Control. Advancing the state of the art in all of the areas discussed above allow a
single person to control multiple aircraft. Highly autonomous aircraft have reduced requirements for
ground equipment and communications and can leverage advances in displays and voice control. The
benefits of this are reduced manpower, reduced hardware (and therefore logistics), and increased
effectiveness.
Flight Autonomy and Cognitive Processes
Advances in computer and communications technologies have enabled the development of autonomous
unmanned systems. The Vietnam conflict era remotely piloted vehicles (RPVs) were typically controlled
by the manned aircraft that launched them, or by ground elements. These systems required skilled
operators. Some of these systems flew rudimentary mission profiles based on analog computers, but they
remained primarily hand flown throughout the majority of the mission profiles. In the 1970s the Air
Force embarked on the Compass Cope program to develop a high altitude long-endurance system capable
of reconnaissance at long range. The Compass Cope systems were still hand flown.
In 1988 DARPA developed the first autonomous UA, a high altitude long endurance UA called Condor,
with a design goal of 150 hours at 60,000 feet. This aircraft was pre-programmed from takeoff to landing
and had no direct manual inputs, e.g. no stick and rudder capability in the ground station. The system
flew successfully 11 times setting altitude and endurance records. The level of autonomy in this aircraft
was limited to redundancy management of subsystems and alternate runways. It demonstrated these
features several times during the flight test program. Next came Global Hawk and DarkStar, which
advanced autonomy almost to Level 3 (see Figure D-5); with real-time health and diagnostics and
substantial improvements in adaptive behavior to flight conditions and in-flight failures.
The J-UCAS program is extending the work being accomplished by these programs, advancing the state
of the art in multi-aircraft cooperation. Decisions include: coordinated navigation plan updates,
communication plan reassignments, weapons allocations or the accumulation of data from the entire
squadron to arrive at an updated situational assessment. Cooperation in this context applies to
cooperative actions among the J-UCAS aircraft. They will have inter-aircraft data links to allow transfer
of information between them and the manned aircraft. The information may include mission plan
updates, target designation information, image chips and possibly other sensor data. Key mission
decisions will be made based on the information passed between the systems. The J-UCAS will still have
all of the subsystem management and contingency management autonomous attributes as the previous
generation of UA systems. The J-UCAS program plans to demonstrate at least level 6 autonomy. Figure
D-5 depicts where some UA stand in comparison to the ten levels of autonomy.
APPENDIX D – TECHNOLOGIES
Page D-9