UASUV 2017 Med Unmanned Vehicles Technology | Page 19

8. Industrial inspections
9. Real estate/Aerial photography
10. Agriculture crop surveying and analysis
11. Insurance risk assessment, damage determination
12. Fire departments
13. Regulate Fisheries
14. Disaster relief
15. Hydrography and Oceanography
16. Environmental, Climate and Weather scientific and ecological activities
17. Recreational activities
18. Delivery services
If those missions consist a critical evolution in the civil sector, perhaps we are facing a revolution in the
military domain.
UV’s can be relatively cheap and their operations are not limited by human performance or needs. They
expand Commander’s tactical choices while they can perform in denied areas without exposing a crew
to those risks. UAVs can offer double or triple the range and endurance of manned aircraft.
Let’s mention some of the UV’S (air, surface, underwater, ground) military missions which are already
undertaken or are imminent:
1. Provide ground and sea surveillance and targeting
2. Provide ISR at borders and other extensive critical areas like energy installations at sea.
3. Military deception, information operations, electronic warfare, and cyberwarfare
4. Cross-domain integration, and communication relay.
5. Nearshore fire support and looking over the hill
6. Support of Ship-to-Objective Maneuver
7. Harbor and coastal protection
8. Naval force protection
9. Deep strike
10. Suppression of enemy air defenses
11. Combat search and resque operations
12. Countering mines in the sea and on land
13. Early warning of coming missiles and small boats
14. Countering diesel submarines, surface craft and antiship missiles
15. Transporting and delivering combat supplies
16. Refuelling platforms
17. Battle damage assessment
18. Urban warfare
19. Countering piracy and interdiction ops
20. Assymetric threats and terrorism
21. Detecting chemical, biological, radiological attack
Are there any weaknesses? Yes there are. For the moment UV’s have relatively low maneuverability and
low speed. They are vulnerable to attack from air defense systems and to cyber and communications
link attack. Vast quantity of data collected requires sophisticated data analysis to enable the data be
analyzed and distributed.
Are there challenges for UV’s? Yes there are. Provision is needed for legislation concerning safety,
privacy, civil rights and liberties, as well as air traffic regulations. A lot of technical challenges have to be
faced like interoperability and standardization, energy storage, navigation, sensing, and control, satellite
integrated telemetry, data access, training, flexibility for man – machine interface, autonomy and
automation capabilities, hypersonic flight, swarm UV’s, cyber defense, detect, intercept, and neutralize
offensive drones e.tc..
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