The U.S Develope Technology X-47B and BAMS UAV

X-47B UAV and BAMS UAV

As the U.S. military moves deeper into the evolving realm of the networked battlespace, attention is turning to the need for better coordination of manned and unmanned aircraft. Some combat pilots in Southwest Asia have referred to the hundreds of UAVs operating in the same airspace as “FOD [foreign object debris] in the sky.” But surpassing the relatively remote possibility of a crowded-sky collision is the potential of UAVs and manned aircraft working as a team.

Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman have created a joint venture called Longbow to develop an unmanned tactical common data link assembly, or UTA. It would allow the crew of an AH-64D Apache Block III attack helicopter to control linked UAVs. The UTA completed its first powered flight at the end of 2008, successfully acquiring and tracking an unmanned Little Bird. The UTA is fully integrated with the Apache’s display systems, allowing the crew to receive and view realtime, high-definition streaming video from UAVs at long distances from the helicopter.

At AUVSI’s Unmanned Systems Pro gram Review 2009, Navy officials talked about the prospects of a sixth-generation unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) to supplement and eventually replace the fifth-generation F-35 aboard carriers. The concept vehicle for that will be the Northrop Grumman X-47B, scheduled to begin carrier-based launch and recovery flight tests in 2011 and attempt an autonomous carrier landing around 2013. The X-47B could stay aloft for up to 50 hr with a range of 3,000 n.mi. using autonomous refueling, which is to be tested in about 2015.

The Navy has no current plans to procure such a system, but is looking at it as part of an examination of future “capability gaps.” That also applies to the Navy’s broad area maritime surveillance system (BAMS).
Capt. Robert Dishman of the Persistent Maritime Unmanned Aircraft Systems Program Office told AUVSI that BAMS will leverage hardware, infrastructure, and expertise from across DOD “to provide persistent maritime intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance integral to the Navy’s airborne ISR recapitalization
strategy,” and that a $1.16-billion development contract awarded to Northrop Grumman in April 2008 “represents the Navy’s largest investment in unmanned aircraft systems to date.”

The BAMS UAV, based on Global Hawk and its accompanying system, would give the Navy persistent surveillance capability even in a “satellite-denied environment.” That need gained importance after a successful Chinese antisatellite test in 2007 and Iran’s claim to have launched its first indigenously produced satellite. The on orbit collision in February between a derelict Soviet-era satellite and an operational Iridium communications spacecraft was an even greater underscore, demonstrating not just the potential for the direct loss of a satellite but also the continuing danger of the expanding debris field it created.