Army's unmanned aviation fleet faces technology challenges.

• Author: Wright, Austin

* In coming decades, unmanned aerial vehicles will dominate the Army's aviation fleet, officials said.

"The rapid advancement in aviation technology in the past eight years is reminiscent of the aviation boom during World War II," Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli said in a speech at an aviation conference in Fort Worth, Texas. "Unmanned systems must provide the capability not only to see, but to shape, the battlefield."

To boost the capabilities of unmanned aircraft, the Army identified three key areas where improved technology is needed: interoperability, sense-and-avoid devices and sensors that measure equipment deterioration.

The first technology gap, interoperability, applies to virtually all areas of UAV command and control. Army leaders want to be able to fly UAVs from the cockpits of piloted aircraft, and they want ground stations that are compatible with more than one type of aircraft.

"We envision interoperable ground control stations where one operator can control multiple UAVs at the same time," said Col. Christopher B. Carlile, director of the Army's UAV Center of Excellence. He predicted that 20 years from now, three out of four attack missions will be unmanned.

Already, Army engineers are installing devices in aircraft such as Apache attack helicopters and Chinook heavy lift helicopters that allow pilots to communicate with, and in some cases control, UAVs. Officials tout the concept of "manned-unmanned teaming."

Boeing recently introduced an interoperability tool, called the advanced tactical network system, for the Chinook and other aircraft. The network allows pilots and ground crews to view video feeds simultaneously.

In the past, such feeds have only transferred data point-to-point, meaning the information is sent directly from one aircraft to another, or from one aircraft to a ground crew. Boeing's device allows all parties to view the streams at the same time.

"You have the ability to tap into things you hadn't been able to tap into before," said Tom Dubois, a senior rotorcraft engineer at Boeing. "It pulls lots of different information and shares it with everybody on the network."

The system allows for instant messaging and has a GPS tracking device that can pinpoint users on a map. The network is encrypted to prevent enemies from viewing the streams, Dubois said.

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Chiarelli said networks be a centerpiece of Army modernization and a major feature of unmanned systems. Soldiers at...