Vehicles proliferate in the battlefield.

• Author: Tiron, Roxana
• Position: Army Unmanned Air

The U.S. Army is committing increasing resources to developing sharply enhanced surveillance, communications and weapons for unmanned aerial vehicles. It also is developing tactical doctrine to deploy these assets from corps to company levels.

Because of mounting soldier demand for UAVs, officials are looking to fortify unmanned capabilities without crowding the battlefield.

In Operation Iraqi Freedom, tactical UAVs such as the Hunter and Shadow flew a combined 7 500 hours--approximately four times their projected operational tempo. Division and corps commanders continue to ask for more UAVs, said Lt. Col. John Kelleher, from the office of the assistant secretary of the Army. He spoke at the unmanned systems program review sponsored by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International.

Two years ago, he said, III Corps had the only Hunter operational unit. During the course of last year, both V Corps and the 18th Airborne Corps were equipped with Hunters.

The Army's first-ever fielded UAV, the Hunter initially was terminated in 1996, but resurrected a few years later, said Kelleher.

The Hunter is a tactical, fixed wing air vehicle that collects and relays real-time reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition information back to its operators.

The Hunter, built by Northrop Grumman, is playing the interim role for the Extended Range Mission Payload UAV, which is supposed to replace the Hunter. The Army is planning to make an award in the ERMP program in late 2004 early 2005, said Kelleher. The ERMP would carry a payload of about 800 pounds, have a range of 200 miles and operate 24 hours continuously at altitudes of up to 25,000 feet.

While current UAVs perform mainly reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition, the ERMP also is supposed to carry weapons. That's separate from the joint Army-DARPA development of the unmanned combat armed rotorcraft, which is expected tit have an initial operating capability in 2010, said Kelleher.

Last month, however, the Army deployed two Improved G-NAT systems (I-GNAT) to Iraq. First delivered in 1998, I-GNAT has an endurance of 35 hours at 300 km, according to the producer General Atomics Aeronautical Systems.

A downsized Predator-type UAV, the I-GNAT can be outfitted with Hellfire and Stinger missiles, but Army officials refused to specify whether die deployed systems carry weapons.

The Shadow 200 tactical UAV went from a production decision to fielding in 33 months, Kelleher said...