News

US Coast Guard re-affirms two tier UAS architecture requirement

February 11, 2009

The US Coast Guard has confirmed it has just completed a strategic paper on development of its unmanned air systems capabilities with this reaffirming a two tier operational architecture according to the services assistant commandant for acquisition RADM Gary Blore.

Addressing a Pentagon telephone media conference 6 February he said “we just did a strategic paper for our department.”

The two tiers would comprise a ship launched tactical capability and a medium altitude system. The service is stressing that it wants to fulfil both requirements in cooperative programmes with other US military service arms rather than attempt stand-alone acquisitions.

Ongoing cooperation with the US Navy on its own Northrop Grumman MQ-8 Fire Scout is strengthening the potential for a USCG purchase of the same vertical takeoff and landing system Blore said.

The USCG’s new national security cutters remain the focus for deploying the tactical class system: “The National Security Cutter was built with the space and weight reserved for a vertical takeoff UAS system. We continue to work closely with our partners, in the Navy, on their Fire Scout program.

“Their Fire Scout program looks like it would be very applicable to us if it had an integrated radar in the platform. The Navy has agreed to take on the integrated radar this next fiscal year, or not the integrated radar but a radar, and integrate it. So we watch that with great interest.”

Plans under the former Deepwater force modernization programme had proposed the USCG equip its national security cutters with the AAI Textron Eagle Eye tilt rotor. However that acquisition effort was frozen in October 2007 after the system, then being developed by Bell Helicopter Textron, failed to meet development programme goals.

The Coast Guard is currently evaluating responses to its October 2008 request for information for the new tactical requirement. Responses to that RFI closed 1 December.

Cooperation with the US Customs and Border Protection Service continues to inform the services thinking about its endurance system requirement. Blore says that the USCG is working “quite closely with Customs and Border Protection and their Predator program, since that is an example of a mid-altitude UAS. And there are a lot of lessons learned, from Customs and Border Protection that they're sharing with us.”

The US Department of Homeland Security first flagged a UAS cooperation programme between Customs and Border Protection and USCG wide area maritime surveillance requirements in mid 2007.

Blore said the endurance system would operate between “10 and 30,000 feet and can go lower that would do more of our long-range surveillance. And we would certainly hook those up with AIS or automatic identification system sensors and feed our common operating picture.”

The two classes of system would be operated in similar ways to the existing USCG manned aircraft fleet. “Just like we have in the manned fleet -- where you have fixed-wing aircraft that kind of have longer range, but specialized for specific purposes, and you have helicopters that have shorter range but, you know, are able to hold station over a target, and do things that fixed-wing aircraft can't -- that that's our solution in the Unmanned Aerial System community.

“We're going to have longer-range assets that will be flying missions similar to surveillance aircraft and will have those tactical assets, at the commanding officer of the cutter's command and control, to go out and look at contacts, et cetera.”

The Coast Guard’s ongoing AIS requirements could lead to arrangements for sourcing that data from other US military service arms or from commercial operators Blore said.

“As you know, we have paid for some sensors to be put on commercial satellites. The jury is kind of still out on how accurate it is and how much information it can provide. We're still doing the analysis to see how the correlation works with, you know, terrestrial antennas we have that are picking up the same signal. But I think there's, you know, high hope that, you know, satellites -- if you chose to use that technology -- have the capability to cover, you know, vast swathes of water, you know, much more so than you can with terrestrial antennas…

“The other thing we're looking at, not so much to have within the Coast Guard but to maybe lease or receive data inputs, from our sister services, are things like, you know, Global Hawk and some of the really high-altitude, sophisticated UAS. They're not satellites but they're starting to get up at those sorts of altitudes that with the right antenna, you know, they're getting a pretty broad swath of ocean.”

Blore confirmed “we did an evaluation with the [US] air force a couple years ago through our research and development centre, where they flew a Global Hawk basically out of Western Canada. And it covered the Pacific Ocean in one flight. So that gives you, you know, the kind of territory it can cover.

“But you know, I'd say again the jury is still out on satellites. We're looking at them and seeing if that's really a cost-effective way to do it. We'll continue to work with our sister services and watch their high-altitude UAS programs. And we'll continue to work directly on terrestrial systems.”

The Coast Guard remains unlikely to support any stand alone UAS development efforts Blore said: “We are not looking to build a system from the ground up… The Coast Guard is a small agency. It does not have a large research-and-development budget. And in my personal opinion, we don't have a role to play in doing that kind of very developmental work that's necessary to build a UAS platform.

“Now, the good news is, there's lots of other people that do have the research and development funds and have built some excellent UAS platforms, many of which are technologically quite mature and production quite mature.”

By Peter La Franchi - Asia-Pacific Editor