Unmanned Aircraft Systems Roadmap 2005-2030 - Federation of ...
Unmanned Aircraft Systems Roadmap 2005-2030 - Federation of ...
Unmanned Aircraft Systems Roadmap 2005-2030 - Federation of ...
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UAS ROADMAP <strong>2005</strong><br />
4.0 TECHNOLOGIES<br />
<strong>Unmanned</strong> aviation has been the driving or contributing motivation behind many <strong>of</strong> the key technical<br />
innovations in aviation: the autopilot, the inertial navigation system, and data links, to name a few.<br />
Although UAS development was hobbled by technology insufficiencies through most <strong>of</strong> the 20th century,<br />
focused efforts in various military projects overcame the basic problems <strong>of</strong> automatic stabilization,<br />
remote control, and autonomous navigation by the 1950s. The last several decades have been spent<br />
improving the technologies supporting these capabilities largely through the integration <strong>of</strong> increasingly<br />
capable microprocessors in the flight control and mission management computers flown on UA. By<br />
1989, technology had enabled an UA (DARPA’s Condor) to perform fully autonomous flight, from take<strong>of</strong>f<br />
to landing without human intervention. The early part <strong>of</strong> the 21st century will likely see even more<br />
enhancements in UAS as they continue their growth. The ongoing revolution in the biological sciences,<br />
together with ever-evolving microprocessor capabilities, are two general technology trends that will<br />
impact aviation and enable more capable UAS to appear in the timeframe <strong>of</strong> this <strong>Roadmap</strong>. UA<br />
technology enablers are discussed in more detail in Appendix D.<br />
Although, DoD continues to strongly invest in researching and developing technologies with the potential<br />
to advance the capabilities <strong>of</strong> UAS, commercial applications now drive many unmanned technologies.<br />
Figure 4.0-1 shows the Air Force, Army, and Navy research laboratories investments, along with<br />
DARPA’s, in UAS-related research and development (R&D) in the FY05-09 President’s Budget.<br />
Together, the Services fund $1.662 billion in 79 UAS-related R&D projects, a significant increase over<br />
the $1.241 billion and 60 projects funded in 2000. Appendix D, Table D-1 contains a detailed listing <strong>of</strong><br />
the projects being funded.<br />
Air Force,<br />
$808.7M<br />
$1,662 M Total R&D Investment<br />
Army ,<br />
$269.6M<br />
DARPA,<br />
$306.7M<br />
Navy,<br />
$297.1M<br />
FIGURE 4.0-1. DOD INVESTMENT IN UAS RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT, FY05 - FY09.<br />
The two basic approaches to implementing unmanned flight, autonomy (illustrated by the RQ-4) and<br />
pilot-in-the-loop (illustrated by the MQ-1), rely predominantly on microprocessor and communication<br />
(data link) technology, respectively. While both technologies are used to differing levels in all current<br />
UA, it is these two technologies that compensate for the absence <strong>of</strong> an onboard pilot and thus enable<br />
unmanned flight. Advances in both are driven today by their commercial markets, the personal computer<br />
industry for microprocessors and the banking and wireless communication industries for data protection<br />
and compression. This chapter focuses on forecasting trends in these two technologies over the coming<br />
25 years; sections on aircraft and payload advances are included and apply equally to manned aircraft.<br />
As for what constitutes "autonomy" in UA, the directors <strong>of</strong> the Service research laboratories have adopted<br />
an onion-like layered series <strong>of</strong> capabilities to define this measure <strong>of</strong> UA sophistication. These definitions<br />
run the span from teleoperated and preprogrammed flight by single aircraft to self-actualizing group<br />
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