Preserving capacity, General Tom Lawson, Chief of the Defence Staff, Keys to Canadian SAR
Issue link: http://vanguardcanada.uberflip.com/i/274231
e edge oF TECH 44 FEBRUARY/MARCH 2014 www.vanguardcanada.com Size matters new mission capabilities through small systems ian Mcdonald is vice president, product and marketing at Aeryon Labs, responsible for product management, strategic partnerships, and integrated marketing. Small unmanned aerial systems (sUAS) provide immediate situational intelligence to ground forces, and to remote command. The very or- der of this statement reveals the roles and ap- plications to which these systems are uniquely suited. In contrast to large unmanned aerial systems, sUAS shorten and reverse the data chain – they place advanced ISR capabilities directly in the hands of the soldier, squad, or platoon who needs it most, while securely networked with C4ISR. Early generations of sUAS substantially changed the modern soldier. What comes next is poised to transform modern armed forces. Fit for purpose For soldiers gathering forward ISR (intelligence, surveillance, re- connaissance) or building situational awareness, small unmanned aerial systems have placed immediate information-gathering tools in their backpack, and direct control at their fingertips. In remote locations, and with little or no support infrastructure, sUAS can be quickly transported, launched, operated and recovered in close proximity to the operational theater. For covert missions, sUAS can also be deployed without detection. sUAS can similarly pro- vide immediate forward support to protect convoys or operating bases, flying in advance of mobile assets or around fixed assets to identify potential threats. Fixed-wing airframes represented the majority of early deploy- ments of sUAS en masse. As armed forces review results and les- sons from these initial forays, however, VTOL (Vertical Take-Off and Landing) sUAS are gaining more attention than ever before. VTOL systems offer similar benefits of helicopters when com- pared to fixed wing aircraft, including ease of launch and recovery, mission flexibility, and the ability to hover and maintain constant eyes-on-target. Persistent observation is challenging for fixed- wing systems as they must constantly move forward to remain air- borne, requiring circular flight paths that create intervals in which target observation is lost and must be re-established. Beyond recognized data gathering require- ments, it is truly time for users to expect more from sUAS. A "man-packable" system should not require sharing gear across multiple sol- diers, and instead should mean the ability for soldiers to carry a system in addition to their standard gear. That system should not deploy quickly, but immediately, with no as- sembly, and no heavy peripheral equipment such as launchers/ retrievers or ground control antenna towers. Users should expect sUAS to perform reliably in high winds, extreme weather conditions, and in confined environments, even operating when it is not safe to fly larger UAS or manned aircraft. Training should be minimal – and similarly requirements for flight hours to maintain operator currency and proficiency. sUAS should intelligently and autonomously handle most of the actual work of flying and allow operators to focus on the task-at-hand, and fur- thermore should actively assist operators in successfully complet- ing their mission from launch to safe recovery. Payload capabilities must be flexible for mission objectives but also integrated for consistent experience – all imagery should au- tomatically include georeference and other metadata. Networking should set up automatically, and should be robust, secure, and extensible. Beyond the aerial vehicle, sUAS should truly be sys- tems and provide complete end-to-end solutions, easily passing collected data into networks or advanced processing tools. More capability in a backpack A key enabler for sUAS continues to be the miniaturization of sensors, providing capabilities of larger terrestrial or aerial plat-