Eyes of Army drones multiply, open wide.

• Author: Beidel, Eric

Even though unmanned aircraft have generally been spared from the conversation about the Pentagon's spending cuts, Army officials want to increase ISR capabilities without adding personnel or aircraft.

"You're really beginning to see a lot of hard work over the last three years come to fruition in a way that's going to fundamentally change the way these systems are used," Tim Owings, the Army's deputy project manager for unmanned systems, told National Defense.

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The service will put more sensors on its larger aircraft and install cameras that can see over a much wider area. It also plans to make it easier for one soldier to control multiple aircraft and payloads. In time, onboard computers may even begin interpreting what they see to alert operators to a situation.

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Many of these new devices will be displayed at a demonstration this fall. The manned-unmanned system integration concept, or MUSIC, will take place in September at Dugway Proving Ground, Utah. The Army says the exercise will be the largest display of interoperability ever conducted and a good indicator of what is to come in its ISR operations.

"It's a large focus of ours currently across the Army--but specifically in unmanned aircraft systems--to be able to perform more missions with fewer aircraft," he said. "That efficiency is becoming big in terms of how we're procuring systems and how we're equipping systems."

The Army is trying to break the paradigm of having two operators for each platform--one who controls the payload and one who flies the aircraft. The service wants soldiers to be able to perform missions by doing both functions proficiently from a single console. "There is a focus on reduced force structure but not reduced capability," Owings said. "That is probably the biggest trend you're going to see over the next three years."

Spectators at the MUSIC event are likely to see scenarios that include a soldier on the ground handing off controls of an unmanned aircraft payload to an Apache helicopter, all while allowing a Kiowa Warrior chopper to receive the video feeds. Soldiers will be tested on their abilities to do more with fewer aircraft, and sensors will show the ability to cover more ground than before.

The Army has built a universal ground control station and a mini-variant for its drones. The latter looks and works like an Xbox controller. Both allow a user to operate the entire catalog of Army UAS. It currently takes...