Air Force, Navy to join forces on unmanned aircraft project.

• Author: Peck, Michael

Anascent Air Force-Navy program to develop a family of unmanned combat aircraft will seek to show military planners how this technology can help commanders gather intelligence, spot the enemy and ultimately destroy designated targets.

This ambitious effort, called J-UCAS (joint unmanned combat air systems) initially is focusing on developing common software that can be shared by both Air Force and Navy aircraft.

According to current plans, both the Air Force and Navy versions of J-UCAS will be equipped for strike missions. However, the Air Force is interested in optimizing its unmanned combat aircraft for electronic attack, while the Navy is focusing on reconnaissance and surveillance capabilities for carrier-based operations.

J-UCAS was formed last October by merging the Air Force X-45 and the Navy X-47 unmanned combat air vehicle programs.

Overseeing the J-UCAS program is the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The Pentagon decided to turn over the $4 billion effort to DARPA to ensure the program does not fall prey to inter-service rivalries.

"We're going to demonstrate a set of capabilities so the services can understand this thing, what it can do and what it can't do," said Michael Francis, director of J-UCAS.

"The operating system is the part that's hardest to deal with," he told National Defense. Unlike traditional aircraft programs, J-UCAS emphasizes the software and the network, rather than the vehicles. "The platforms are just nodes in a network," Francis said.

In June, DARPA will select an "integrator-broker" to help develop the common operating system. The integrator, which could come from the government, academia or the private sector, will work with Boeing and Northrop Grumman, developers of the X-45 and X-47 respectively.

Fighting their way through layers of enemy air defenses, a UCAV must be capable of autonomous decision-making for everything short of the order to fire weapons. It must operate within a formation of multiple vehicles, which requires communications with other UAVs and with ground...