Pentagon seeks common control for unmanned aircraft

Pentagon seeks common control for unmanned aircraft
WASHINGTON — As unmanned aircraft begin to play a larger role in modern warfare, greater attention is being paid to the ground station systems needed to control the aircraft — often from long range.

Much of the development work related to command and control of unmanned spy aircraft centers on a software program called the Tactical Control System (TCS). The system software is being designed to allow operators to control communications, mission planning and execution, and image processing and dissemination. The system could eventually be used to control aircraft operated by all the military services.

TCS was launched in 1997 and is run by the Defense Department's Joint Program Office for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. It is also being designed as a standard software package for a ground-control architecture that could be used to receive sensor data from a variety of unmanned aircraft, including the Predator medium-altitude and the Global Hawk high-altitude aircraft.

According to the Federation of American Scientists, which tracks military programs, the system could be used to provide links to a range of command, control, communications, computer and intelligence systems.

Raytheon Co. (Lexington, Mass.) said this past week that it has conducted the first launch and recovery of the U.S. Army's Shadow 600 unmanned aircraft using the Tactical Control System. Shadow is a multimission surveillance aircraft that carries forward-looking infrared cameras, a low-light TV camera and a daytime still camera. It is built by AAI Corp. (Hunt Valley, Md.).

High control

Raytheon, which also builds the Global Hawk sensor suite, said that it used the Tactical Control System to demonstrate the highest level of flight control for Shadow 600, which includes full aircraft function and control during takeoff, flight and landing. The sensor payload was also controlled by TCS during the flight tests, along with image processing.

The test also demonstrated "interface control" of an earlier version of the Shadow aircraft. Interface control means operators were able to receive imagery or data directly from the aircraft.

Raytheon said the successful test at the Army's test range at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., was built on TCS capabilities developed for controlling the Predator spy plane now being used for surveillance in Afghanistan.

Planners hope that by testing TCS on a range of short- and long-haul unmanned aircraft, the military will be able to use it as a common control system.

According to Defense Department officials, some unmanned aircraft are remotely controlled by operators using stick and rudder controls. However, control of the Shadow and Global Hawk aircraft involves programming the plane to fly to certain spots in the sky known as "way points."

"The vehicle autonomously decides how to change and adjust its flight profile to get to that point," a program official said.

The U.S. military is expanding use of unmanned spy planes for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions. The war in Afghanistan, where controllers often operate aircraft from hundreds of miles away, is demonstrating the need for better, cheaper ground stations, experts said.

The TCS software effort is being tailored to allow aircraft operators trained on one system to control different types of unmanned aircraft or sensor payloads with minimal additional training. The system is initially scheduled to be used as the ground-control system for the Predator and Shadow unmanned aircraft along with a helicopter-like vehicle called Fire Scout.