Military & Aerospace

UCAV: Airborne Without a Pilot
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Issue Vol. 28.3 Jul-Sep 2013 | Date : 05 Oct , 2013

AeroVironment Switchblade

Israel is where the modern unmanned ISR story began and the Israeli military can teach the rest of the world a thing or two about UAV operational employment. Big Israeli companies such as Elbit, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and Aeronautics Defense are global leaders in the field of UAV technology. Although Israel prefers to hold its cards close to its chest, and is yet to unveil its own full-fledged multi-role UCAV, it is already suspected of sometimes employing armed unmanned platforms. Indeed, it is only a question of time before it does so in a big way.

IAI Harop (Courtesy:en.wikipedia.org)

The IAI Harop, for instance, is a hunter-killer ‘hara-kiri’ type of UCAV with a small 23-kg explosive charge. Designed for Suppression of Enemy Air Defences (SEAD), it can detect the strong pulses transmitted by targets such as missile radars, automatically home onto them, and then collide explosively with the source. Alternatively, an airborne operator can sift through a number of targets detected by the aircraft’s electro-optical sensor and designate one for the Harop to hit. Thus, even radars that are shut down or not emitting can be knocked out. The Harop is powered by a propeller engine and has an operational range of 1,000 km and endurance of up to six hours.

There’s the fear that heavily armed, out-of-control autonomous machines may someday decide to wage war against humans…

China is also aggressively pursuing development of a whole range of UAVs and UCAVs. Its latest design, the delta wing, low-observable Shenyang Li Jian (‘Dark Sword’ or ‘Sharp Sword’) UCAV, appears to be similar to the Northrop Grumman X-47B and the Dassault nEUROn. It is expected to complete its first flight shortly. In Russia, the Mikoyan/Sukhoi SKAT, a stealth UCAV, is meant to carry missiles like the Kh-31 for subsonic strike missions including SEAD. In May, RAC MiG signed a new R&D agreement to build a UCAV based on the SKAT design.

The Indian Air Force (IAF) is in the process of inducting the Israeli Harop UCAV. But wouldn’t India like to develop its own capability as well? It certainly would. The Indian Unmanned Strike Air Vehicle (IUSAV), codenamed AURA, is currently in the project definition stage. The design work of this autonomous UCAV is being carried out by the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA). Described as a “self-defending high-speed reconnaissance UAV with weapon firing capability”, it is a flying-wing with stealth characteristics and a turbofan engine. It is similar to other flying-wing UCAVs like the European nEUROn and US Phantom Ray. The AURA will cruise at medium altitude. It will be capable of internally carrying two or more guided strike weapons, including missiles and bombs, with on-board sensors for targeting and weapon guidance. A prototype could fly in 2015-2016, with first deliveries hoped for by the end of the decade.

Ethical Issues

Currently, UCAVs themselves lack adequate defensive capability and are sitting ducks in heavily-defended airspace. They have no situational awareness of the threats around them, apart from detecting the emissions of hostile radars. Hence they are highly vulnerable to any attack that does not activate their radar warning receivers. For this reason, most modern UCAVs are designed for maximum stealth, with tailless subsonic blended wing bodies, shielded air intakes and attenuated exhausts. Here a fighter aircraft with a human pilot capable of a range of defensive and offensive measures still scores over a UCAV. Nevertheless, most military experts believe that UCAVs will play an increasing role in future operations, ultimately perhaps even being capable of air combat against a manned fighter aircraft.

Mikoyan SKAT

Unmanned and robotic attacks, however, raise a host of legal and ethical issues. Ideally, any UCAV operator should at least be a military person who understands and accepts what it means to be a combatant, because a civilian at the controls would also be a combatant under international law and subject to a distinct set of responsibilities and consequences. The situation gets more complicated as autonomy increases. Pretty soon airborne machines will be ‘smart’ and able to act more like humans. Semi-autonomous or even fully-autonomous systems will take aggressive operational decisions without human intervention. While humans may still programme the autonomous UCAV’s flight plan and possibly override its decisions, many find the concept of a heavily-armed machine operating without direct human control troubling because of the difficulty in assigning accountability.

US employment of UCAVs in Afghanistan and Pakistan vividly illustrates their usefulness especially in asymmetric conflicts…

For instance, what if human drone operators are completely replaced by computer algorithms? What about ‘signature strikes’ where unknown targets are hit simply because they seem to meet certain specified criteria? Who will be legally and morally answerable at a war crimes trial if an autonomous UCAV hits a hospital instead of a terrorist safe haven? Will it be the UCAV designer, the manufacturer, the mission programmer, or the launch agency? Right now, the US is the main operator of lethal UCAVs and its actions go virtually unchallenged. But it is only a question of time before Russia and China develop their own UCAVs. That’s when such questions will have to be faced head on.

Further into the future there’s the fear (common to all forms of lethal robotics) that heavily armed, out-of-control autonomous machines may someday decide to wage war against humans. The danger is plausible enough for some experts and even the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to call for a global ban on lethal autonomous technology.

Manned or Unmanned?

Notwithstanding such concerns, UCAVs continue to proliferate. Their ability to fly relatively silently and stealthily and remain undetected over vast distances, then launch precision strikes against time-critical targets, makes them objects of desire for any military. US employment of UCAVs in Afghanistan and Pakistan vividly illustrates their usefulness especially in the asymmetric conflicts that rage across the globe.

The next two or three decades may see current aircraft such as the Eurofighter Typhoon, the French Rafale and the Swedish JAS-39 Gripen, besides fifth-generation fighters such as the US F-35 Lightning II and the Russian Sukhoi T-50, dominating military aviation. Beyond that, the future of manned combat aircraft appears increasingly uncertain.

It seems likely that UCAVs will supplement manned aviation in a growing number of operational situations. The main reason is the capability UCAVs offer to mount a lethal attack without endangering the lives of service personnel. They can also be produced, stored and flown at a fraction of the cost of manned combat aircraft. In an era of shrinking defence budgets, cost-conscious governments are more likely to approve the acquisition of three or four squadrons of armed drones instead of one squadron of manned combat aircraft. At the same time, the survivability and operational employability of manned fighters in many situations is becoming suspect due to dramatic improvements in long-range air defences, radars that see through stealth, and increase in beyond-visual-range combat. In some cases, weather restrictions and the physiological limitations of human pilots could also make UCAVs more viable than manned aircraft.

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Does that mean that fighter pilots should get ready to fly into the sunset? Not quite yet. The obituary of the manned combat aircraft has recurrently been written but the prediction is yet to materialise. Over half a century ago, the UK Ministry of Defence White Paper of 1957 stated that manned bombers and fighters would quickly be replaced by automated missiles. But missiles famously did not live up to their early promise and combat aircraft remain indispensable to this day. This time, however, the unmanned threat to fighter pilots does seem a lot more credible.

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The views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions or policies of the Indian Defence Review.

About the Author

Gp Capt Joseph Noronha

Former MiG-21 Pilot and experienced IAF instructor before he turned to writing articles on aviation.

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