Between the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)'s programs already in use and its April-announced outline of fiscal-2007 plans, as well as other major organizations' autonomous creations, unmanned vehicles are playing a big role in military efforts: on the ground, in the air and under the sea.

Unmanned on Ground
In April, DARPA and Carnegie Mellon University's National Robotics Engineering Center (NREC) unveiled the successor of Spinner, a seven-ton unmanned ground combat vehicle (UGCV). The new 6.5-ton robot, dubbed "Crusher," combines the strength of Spinner with NREC-developed capabilities to create an extremely robust, unmanned vehicle that can function on its own in challenging off-road terrain.

The Crusher project, known as UPI, deploys technology that spreads sensing abilities across the entire vehicle to help balance its perception while also supporting vehicle areas that may be less adept at sensing the environment. The software will also let Crusher "learn" and apply previously gathered information to new obstacles. This should make the Crusher faster than Spinner and better equipped for handling more complex terrain situations.

Because Crusher (as well as its predecessor) does not have to accommodate human crews, its novel design offers unequaled ruggedness, mobility and payload-carrying capacity compared with manned vehicles in its weight class. The new UGCV will be able to carry payloads of up to two tons on very complex terrains while relying on the aforementioned surrounding sensors to keep its balance and learn about its environment.

The technologies developed for Crusher also have potential for commercial use in areas such as construction, mining and farming. After intensive testing, Crusher should begin performing its duties — for the Army's effort to keep troops out of harm's way — in 2008.

Unmanned in Air
Over the last decade, the military has employed unmanned aircraft to perform many dangerous duties.

For instance, unmanned aircraft — Predators, specifically — prowled the skies of Afghanistan using their electric eyes to hunt down al-Qaida operatives. And although this machine is quiet and relatively slow, it "sure is making a loud impact on the war in Iraq," according to a report by KSL News in Utah.

An unmanned aircraft can do a number of things a typical fighter jet cannot. Foremost, of course, it can go into more dangerous situations because it is unmanned. The machine takes off and lands via a sort of remote control; then another group of pilots based someplace else picks it up while the plane is in the air, and continues the mission.

But it also can stay in the air significantly longer than a fighter jet.

"We can watch a target all day and all night if we have to," said Maj. Micha Morgan, 46th Strike & Reconnaissance Squadron

If the Predator needs to strike down a target, it can do that, too. Likewise DARPA's recently announced Close Air Support Technology for Loitering Engagement program, which will explore persistent, survivable unmanned aircraft able to provide precision fire support on demand using electromagnetic guns, directed-energy weapons, vertical-launch missiles, or "deep magazine" conventional guns and bombs.

However, dropping missiles is not the Predator's primary focus. The aircraft's $1+ million mounted camera plays an essential role in gathering information. Particularly useful is "how slow and how long it can fly, steady enough to track a car on the streets of Balad and with images clear enough to spot insurgents on the ground." The Predator can follow at an altitude of more than 10,000 feet. It is too quiet for targets to hear.

Uses such as homeland security and scientific experiments are being explored for other unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), along with ways to integrate the aircraft into the daily operations at the nation's municipal airports, according to researchers at New Mexico State University's Physical Science Laboratory (via El Paso Times in February). Government agencies such as the Border Patrol and the U.S. Forest Service already are looking at new applications, laboratory officials said.

For instance, a UAV equipped with a radio and an infrared camera could be a boon to firefighters, said Phil Copeland, the laboratory's deputy technical director. The infrared camera would locate hot spots, allowing tankers to more effectively target their loads of water and fire retardant. A radio relay in the sky could keep smoke jumpers connected when they are in valleys that block signals. The infrared sensors also could provide firefighters warnings about smoldering hot spots on the verge of bursting into life-threatening blazes.

According to Copeland, those same radio-equipped UAVs could have kept rescuers and residents in contact during Hurricane Katrina by providing an "aerial cell tower."

Additional unmanned or optionally manned aircraft plans include DARPA's technology for a short/vertical take-off and landing aircraft – optionally manned – able to carry a 20-ton payload over a radius of at least 740km at more than 200kt, demonstrated under the Heavy Lift program. And an amphibious unmanned aircraft able to loiter at sea for several days, then take off and land in high seas, is the concept behind the agency's Seaplane UAV project.

Unmanned under Water
The United States needs to invest in unmanned subs that could neutralize those of the Chinese, a top naval analyst said in April.

Robert Work, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, told a forum at a conservative think tank that unmanned subs would revolutionize warfare. To counter China's rapidly strengthening submarine fleet, reports United Press International, the U.S. should spur a revolution in undersea warfare by focusing on greater attention and resources on developing advanced unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs). Such a move could make China's submarine investments "worthless" and secure the Navy's place as the world's premier maritime fleet.

The unmanned vehicles can act as extensions of manned platforms to perform intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions. Further, they can act as mine countermeasures, as well as communication, navigation and antisubmarine warfare platforms. (Although, as per news in late April, Navy submarine technology also could possibly have deathly effects on ocean animals.)

Yet UUVs typically are among the first systems cut during the Pentagon's annual budget drill, noted Work. Instead, resources have been poured into buying manned platforms, including nuclear submarines and destroyers, the price tags of which exceed $2 billion a copy. Now struggling domestic shipbuilders are urging Congress to increase submarine purchases to two a year by 2009.

Last year, the Navy released a new UUV plan that established four size classes of the unmanned vehicles ranging from 25 lbs. to 25,000 lbs. The plan also set nine missions for the vehicles and stressed the need for commonality and modularity among the platforms. Then a July 2005 Congressional Research Service report questioned whether the Navy is funding UUVs adequately; the report recommended congressional oversight on the matter.

And in January 2006, reports a recent Sea Power article, "a major milestone" in the U.S. Navy's development of autonomous UUVs occurred: the service achieved the first successful at-sea docking of a UUV with a submerged nuclear-powered attack submarine, the USS Scranton.

Reports the online military resource:

The submarine docked with Boeing's Long-Term Mine Reconnaissance System (LMRS), designed to enable submarines to conduct clandestine undersea surveys to locate mines. The tests demonstrated the ability of an attack submarine to launch an untethered, self-propelled, autonomous UUV from its 21-inch-diameter torpedo tubes, rendezvous with it and guide the UUV into a torpedo tube-mounted robotic recovery arm using an acoustic communication system.

Rather than produce the single-mission LMRS, the Navy instead is leveraging the lessons learned from it and moving forward to acquire more advanced, reconfigurable, multi-mission UUVs. A contract to develop the first of these, called the 21-inch Mission-Reconfigurable UUV System (MRUUVS), is slated for award in mid 2007, and the UUV could become operational in 2013. "An open architecture, or general blueprint, for computerized combat systems means they are standardized, transferable to other platforms and able to accommodate a variety of software applications."

The Navy plans to operate some existing, less-sophisticated UUVs from its forthcoming Littoral Combat Ships, particularly to hunt for mines, using surface launch and recovery. The ships are being designed to counter coastal areas' shallow-water threats, e.g., mines, diesel submarines and fast surface craft.

Unmanned underwater vehicles promise to transform the submarine force significantly, as they extend the covert sensor range of manned submarines and go into high-risk or inaccessible areas. These UUVs will expand operational capabilities, particularly for clandestine underwater intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.

In nearly all forms of military warfare — ground, air, sea — unmanned, autonomous vehicles are capable of changing the rules of the game…if they haven't already.

References

DARPA outlines 2007 blueprint
Flight International, April 18, 2006

Carnegie Mellon's National Robotics Engineering Center Unveils Futuristic Unmanned Ground Combat Vehicles
Carnegie Mellon press release, April 28, 2006

Predator Aircraft Making Big Impact in Iraq
by Kerry Barrett
KSL Television & Radion, April 26, 2006

Unmanned aircraft take on new uses
by Chris Roberts
El Paso Times, Feb. 22, 2006

US should build robot subs, expert says
United Press International, April 19, 2006

Unmanned subs would revolutionize warfare, analyst says
by Megan Scully
GovExec, April 18, 2006

Did Navy sonar kill Zanzibar's dolphins?
The Associated Press (via CNN), April 29, 2006

UUV Breakthrough
by Glenn W. Goodman Jr.
Sea Power (via Military.com), April 27, 2006