UAS UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLES SYSTEMS DRONES UAV CONFERENCE EUROPE 2014

Day One – Tuesday 9 September *

08.00 - 09.00 Registration, tea, coffee

09.00 - 09.05 Chairman’s Opening Address

Air Marshal Philip Sturley CB MBE RAF (Retd)

09.05-09.30 Keynote Address

Mr Matthew Baldwin, Director Aviation and International Transport Affairs, European Commission

09.30 - 10.30 Regulations in the Civilian Domain

Mr Gerry Corbett, UAS Programme Lead, Intelligence Strategy and Policy, Safety and Airspace Regulation Group, Civil Aviation Authority

Mr Elliott Corke, Director and UK Legislation Representative, ARPAS-UK

Mr Nelson Kruschandl, IP Consultant & Patentee, Bluebird Marine Systems Ltd

Mr Lambert Dopping-Hepenstal, ASTRAEA project

10.30 - 11.00 Morning Break

11.00-11.20 UAS Capability Development– The Way Forward

Dr Peter Downer, Air Strategy, FMC - Weapons, Evaluation & Capability Assurance, UAS Capability Development Centre

11.20-12.00 Applying Military Lessons Learned to the Civilian Domain

Panel Speakers to be Announced Shortly

1200-1230 UAS for Emergency Response

Mr Robert Whitehouse, Business Development Director, TEKEVER

1230-1300 Northrop Grumman’s X-47B and concept for UCAVs of the Future – for the Navy and Air Forces

Mr Scott Winship, Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems, Strategic Systems Vice President for Advanced Air Warfare Development, Northrop Grumman Corporation

Mr Timothy Beard, Director for Advanced Air Warfare Development’s Program Integration, Northrop Grumman Corporation

13.00 - 14.00 Lunch Break

14.00-14.20 Government Working Group on RPAS – Strategy & Priorities’

Speaker to be Confirmed Shortly

14.20-15.00 Potential Applications of UAVs in the Emergency Response Sector

Mr Pat Mika, Watch Commander, Emergency Response, R&D Project Support, West Midlands Fire Service

Mr Andy Cashmore, Watch Commander, Emergency Response, West Midlands Fire Service

Sergeant Simon Luck, Gatwick Airport Community Safety Team, Sussex Police

Ms Dawn Huckson, Police Search Advisor, Sussex Police

Mr Pete Keller, Director, Business Development, Aeryon Labs, Inc.

15.00-15.30 The Use of UAVs for Freshwater Ecosystem Monitoring

Dr Monica Rivas Casado, Applied Environmental Statistics Lecturer, School of Applied Sciences, Cranfield University

15.30 - 16.00 Afternoon Break

16.00-16.15 New roles. New rules. New thinking in massive long-range humanitarian aid and global SAR vehicles

Dr Donough Wilson, Innovation Lead, VIVID/futureVision

16.15-16.30 Precision Agriculture UAV Applications

Dr Toby Waine, Academic Fellow in Land Resources Monitoring, Cranfield Soil and AgriFood Institute, Cranfield University

17.30 - 18.30 Networking Drinks Reception

Day Two – Wednesday 10 September *

08.00 - 09.00 Registration, tea, coffee

09.00 - 09.05 Chairman's Opening Address - Air Marshal Philip Sturley CB MBE

09.05-09.30 Small UAS Detection – Case Study of Transition of Military Applications to Civil Sector

Dr Paul Martin, Chief Technology Officer, Plextek Consulting

0930-1030 UAS Applications in Broadcasting

Mr Mike Garner, Broadcaster Cameraman, UAS Operator

Mr Peter Lee, Senior Associate, Taylor Vinters

Mr Ben Kenobi, Remote Pilot (RPQ-S), Director of Rogue State Media

Mr Richard Critchlow, Creative Director, Dependable Productions

10.30-11.00 Morning Break

11.00-11.20 Data optimisation: Getting the Most from what you Already Have

Mr Robert Kerby, Sector Lead-Unmanned Air Systems and ISR Training, 3SDL Ltd

1120-1140 Development of Knowledge-Based Software for UAV Autopilot Design

Mr George Tarrant, Director, Closed Loop Systems Ltd

11.40-12.00 Global Unmanned Systems Training Academy (GUSTA)

Mr Michael Davidson, Managing Director, AV8 UAS Solutions Ltd

12.00-12.20 Artificial Immune System Applied to the Problem of Health Management of Remotely Piloted Aircraft

Mr Jonathan Pelham, Researcher, Cranfield University

12.40-13.00 Panel Discussion: Questions & Answers

13.00 - 14.00 Lunch Break

14.00-14.30 Bridging the Gap between Academia and Industry – The Unmanned Aircraft Systems Challenge

Mr John Turton, Chairman of the UAS Challenge Steering Group, Institution of Mechanical Engineers

14.30-15.00 Applications of Tethered UAVs

Dr Stephen D Prior, Reader in Unmanned Air Vehicles, University of Southampton

15.30 End of Conference

Train/London Underground

The nearest train station is Twickenham, which is a short walk from the stadium. Turn right out of the station, and then continue down Whitton Road. Regular trains run to Twickenham from London Waterloo, Clapham Junction, Reading, Ascot and Windsor & Eton Riverside. Other stations in the vicinity of the stadium are Whitton, St Margarets and Hounslow.

The London Overground service also runs from Richmond to North London and Stratford. The nearest Underground stations are Hounslow East for the Piccadilly Line, and Richmond for the District Line.

By Road

Twickenham Stadium is on the northern side of the A316 into London. From the M25, exit J12 onto the M3. This becomes the A316 and Twickenham Stadium is off the Whitton Road roundabout next to the Lexus/Toyota car dealership. From London, turn right off the A316 at Whitton Road roundabout. Please arrive EARLY to avoid congestion and temporary road closures prior to the event.

Twickenham Car Park

A controlled parking zone operates over an area of approximately one mile around the stadium. Fines and towing are enforced in this area, including Sundays. To pre-book parking at Twickenham please visit www.rfu.com to book online, or download a booking form.

It is recommended that you pre-book a car parking space online via the RFU eTicketing site or using a booking form available in the parking section. Limited parking may be available on the day, but to guarantee a space pre-booking is advised.

An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone and referred to as a Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), is an aircraft without a human pilot aboard. Its flight is controlled either autonomously by onboard computers or by the remote control of a pilot on the ground or in another vehicle. The typical launch and recovery method of an unmanned aircraft is by the function of an automatic system or an external operator on the ground. Historically, UAVs were simple remotely piloted aircraft, but autonomous control is increasingly being employed.

They are usually deployed for military and special operation applications, but also used in a small but growing number of civil applications, such as policing and firefighting, and nonmilitary security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. UAVs are often preferred for missions that are too "dull, dirty or dangerous" for manned aircraft.

An unmanned aircraft system (UAS) includes ground stations and other elements besides the actual aircraft. The term was first officially used by the FAA in early 2005 and subsequently adopted by DoD that same year in their Unmanned Aircraft System Roadmap 2005–2030. Many people have mistakenly used the term Unmanned Aerial System or Unmanned Air Vehicle System, as these designations were in provisional use at one time or another. The inclusion of the term aircraft emphasizes that regardless of the location of the pilot and flightcrew, the operations must comply with the same regulations and procedures as do those aircraft with the pilot and flightcrew on board. The official acronym UAS is also used by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and other government aviation regulatory organizations.

The military role of unmanned aircraft systems is growing at unprecedented rates. In 2005, tactical- and theater-level unmanned aircraft alone had flown over 100,000 flight hours in support of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which they are organized under Task Force Liberty in Afghanistan and Task Force ODIN in Iraq. Rapid advances in technology are enabling more and more capability to be placed on smaller airframes, which is spurring a large increase in the number of Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (SUAS) being deployed on the battlefield. The use of SUAS in combat is so new that no formal DoD wide reporting procedures have been established to track SUAS flight hours. As the capabilities grow for all types of UAS, nations continue to subsidize their research and development, leading to further advances and enabling them to perform a multitude of missions. UAS no longer only perform intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions, although this still remains their predominant type. Their roles have expanded to areas including electronic attack, strike missions, suppression or destruction of enemy air defense, network node or communications relay, combat search and rescue, and derivations of these themes. These UAS range in cost from a few thousand dollars to tens of millions of dollars, with aircraft ranging from less than one pound to over 40,000 pounds.

The P.1HH HammerHead is a full-sized, medium-altitude, long-endurance (MALE) unmanned aircraft system (UAS) developed by Piaggio Aero Industries. The HammerHead UAS was derived from the P.180 Avanti II commercial aircraft. The P.1HH HammerHead UAS made its first flight in February 2013, from an Italian Air Force base. The UAS was first announced at International Defence Exhibition and Conference (IDEX) held in Abu Dhabi, UAE. The UAS was unveiled in June 2013 at the Paris Air Show. The UAS is designed primarily to perform intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) operations. It is also capable of performing several other missions by using a combination of payloads. Some of its mission capabilities include communications intelligence (COMINT), electronics intelligence (ELINT) and signals intelligence (SIGINT). The mission management system (MMS) installed aboard the P.1HH HammerHead helps it to perform patrol and ISR missions for preventing terrorist activities. The Hammerhead has two reliable Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-66B turbine engines integrated with low noise 5 blade scimitar propellers.

When the Obama administration announced in December 2009 the deployment of 30,000 new troops in Afghanistan, there was already an increase of attacks by unmanned Predator UAVs against Taliban and al-Qaeda militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan's tribal areas, of which one probably killed a key member of al-Qaeda. However, neither Osama bin Laden nor Ayman al-Zawahiri was the likely target, according to reports. According to a report of the New America Foundation, armed UAV strikes had dramatically increased under President Obama – even before his deployment decision. There were 43 such attacks between January and October 2009. The report draws on what it deems to be "credible" local and national media stories about the attacks. This can be compared to a total of 34 in all of 2008, which was President Bush's last full year in office.

Between 2006 and 2009, UAV-launched missiles allegedly had killed between 750 and 1,000 people in Pakistan, according to the report. Of these, about 20 people were said to be leaders of al-Qaeda, Taliban, and associated groups. Overall, 66% to 68% of the people killed were militants, and 31% to 33% were civilians. U.S. officials disputed the percentage for civilians. The U.S. Air Force has recently begun referring at least to larger UAS like Predator, Reaper, and Global Hawk as Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) to highlight the fact that these systems are always controlled by a human operator at some location.

China is building up a drone based air force in preference to conventional manned fighters

However, artificial intelligence is advancing to the point where the aircraft are easily capable of taking off, landing, and flying themselves. Then they simply have to be instructed as to their mission. The military distinguishes between "man in the loop" (piloted) and "man on the loop" (supervised) systems, with "fully autonomous" (issued orders) growing organically from the second into a third category. A.I. systems have been capable of making decisions and planning sequences of actions for decades; as of 2013, few fully autonomous systems have been constructed, but this is more a matter of convenience and technical implementation than of any fundamental barrier.

To distinguish UAVs from missiles, a UAV is defined as a "powered, aerial vehicle that does not carry a human operator, uses aerodynamic forces to provide vehicle lift, can fly autonomously or be piloted remotely, can be expendable or recoverable, and can carry a lethal or non-lethal payload". Therefore, cruise missiles are not considered UAVs because, like many other guided missiles, the vehicle itself is a weapon that is not reused, even though it is also unmanned and in some cases remotely guided.

As of January 2014, the U.S. military operates a large number of unmanned aerial systems: 7,362 RQ-11 Ravens; 990 AeroVironment Wasp IIIs; 1,137 AeroVironment RQ-20 Pumas; and 306 RQ-16 T-Hawk small UAS systems and 246 MQ-1 Predators and MQ-1C Grey Eagles; 126 MQ-9 Reapers; 491 RQ-7 Shadows; and 33 RQ-4 Global Hawk large systems.

Heron 1 Drone on display at the Berlin Air Show - Israel Aerospace Industries - The IAI Heron (Machatz-1) is a medium-altitude long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) developed by the Malat (UAV) division of Israel Aerospace Industries. It is capable of Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) operations of up to 52 hours' duration at up to 10.5km (35,000 ft). It has demonstrated 52 hours of continuous flight, but the effective operational maximal flight duration is less, due to payload and flight profile. There is a new version, Heron TP, also known as IAI Eitan.

Beyond the military applications of UAVs with which "drones" became most associated, numerous civil aviation uses have been developed, including aerial surveying of crops, acrobatic aerial footage in filmmaking, search and rescue operations, inspecting power lines and pipelines, and counting wildlife, delivering medical supplies to remote or otherwise inaccessible regions, with some manufacturers rebranding the technology as "unmanned aerial systems" (UASs) in preference over "drones." Drones have also been used by animal-rights advocates to determine if illegal hunting is taking place, even on private property. Drones equipped with video cameras are being used by the League Against Cruel Sports, a British animal-rights group, to spot instances of illegal fox hunting. UAVs are nowadays routinely used in several applications where human interaction is difficult or dangerous. These applications range from military to civilian and include reconnaissance operations, border patrol missions, forest fire detection, surveillance, and search/rescue missions.

In the United States, the Federal Aviation Administration has adopted the name unmanned aircraft (UA) to describe aircraft systems without a flight crew on board. More common names include UAV, drone, remotely piloted vehicle (RPV), remotely piloted aircraft (RPA), and remotely operated aircraft (ROA). These "limited-size" (as defined by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale) unmanned aircraft flown in the USA's National Airspace System, flown solely for recreation and sport purposes, such as models, are generally flown under the voluntary safety standards of the Academy of Model Aeronautics, the United States' national aeromodeling organization. To operate a UA for non-recreational purposes in the United States, according to the FAA users must obtain a Certificate of Authorization (COA) to operate in national airspace. At the moment, COAs require a public entity as a sponsor. For example, when BP needed to observe oil spills, they operated the Aeryon Scout UAVs under a COA granted to the University of Alaska Fairbanks. COAs have been granted for both land and shipborne operations.

US Air Force Global Hawk at the Seoul Aerospace Exhibition, this is one of the largest drones built to date. Most drones have a smaller frontal area to conserve fuel. The Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk is an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) surveillance aircraft. It was initially designed by Ryan Aeronautical (now part of Northrop Grumman), and known as Tier II+ during development. In role and operational design, the Global Hawk is similar to the Lockheed U-2. The RQ-4 provides a broad overview and systematic surveillance using high resolution synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and long-range electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) sensors with long loiter times over target areas. It can survey as much as 40,000 square miles (100,000 km2) of terrain a day. According to the United States Air Force, the superior surveillance capabilities of the aircraft allow more precise weapons targeting and better protection of friendly forces. Cost overruns have led to the original plan to acquire 63 aircraft being cut to 45. Each aircraft was to cost US$35 million in 2005, but this had risen to $222.7M per aircraft (including development costs) by 2013.

The FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 sets a deadline of September 30, 2015, for the agency to establish regulations to allow the use of commercial drones. In the meantime, the agency claims it is illegal to operate commercial unmanned aerial vehicles, but approves non-commercial flights under 400 feet if they follow Advisory Circular 91-57, Model Aircraft Operating Standards, published in 1981. However, the FAA's attempt to fine a commercial drone operator for a 2011 flight were thrown out on 6 March 2014 by NTSB judge Patrick Geraghty, who found that the FAA had not followed the proper rulemaking procedures and therefore had no UAV regulations. The FAA will appeal the judgement. Texas EquuSearch, which performs volunteer search and rescue operations, was also challenging FAA rules in 2014.

As of August 2013, commercial unmanned aerial system (UAS) licenses were granted on a case-by-case basis, subject to approval by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The agency expects that five years after it unveils a regulatory framework for UASs weighing 55 pounds or less, there will be 7,500 such devices in the air. In December 2013, the FAA announced six operators it was authorizing to conduct research on drone technology, to inform its pending regulations and future developments. These were the University of Alaska (including locations in Hawaii and Oregon), the state of Nevada, Griffiss International Airport in New York State, the North Dakota Department of Commerce, Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi, and Virginia Tech.

In May, 2014, a group of major news media companies filed an amicus brief in a case before the U.S.'s National Transportation Safety Board, asserting that the FAA's "overly broad" administrative limitations against private UAS operations cause an "impermissible chilling effect on the First Amendment newsgathering rights of journalists", the brief being filed three months before a scheduled rollout of FAA commercial operator regulations.

Laser development still has a ways to come before it really counts, but when the breakthrough comes, it could alter the balance of power in favour of terrestrial and ocean defenses, over aerial superiority.

The Pentagon this week edged closer to mounting missile-destroying lasers on unmanned and manned aircraft, awarding $26 million to defense contractors to develop the technology.

Under the name Project Endurance, DARPA, the Department of Defense’s research agency, awarded Northrop Grumman $14.6 million and Lockheed Martin $11.4 million in contracts for the effort, according to Military & Aerospace Electronics. Called “Project Endurance,” the research will “develop technology for pod-mounted lasers to protect a variety of airborne platforms from emerging and legacy electro-optical IR guided surface-to-air missiles,” according to DARPA’s 2014 budget request.

The project focuses on “miniaturizing component technologies, developing high-precision target tracking, identification, and lightweight agile beam control to support target engagement,” as well as “the phenomenology of laser-target interactions and associated threat vulnerabilities.”

Those vulnerabilities have been a particular concern when it comes to slow-moving drones, whose job it is to loiter more than it is to evade, making them a potential easy target to be shot out of the sky.

In 2011, Iran claimed to have struck a RQ-170 Sentinel drone. Although the U.S. initially insisted the report was false, officials later acknowledged a drone had gone missing.

“We’ve asked for it back. We’ll see how the Iranians respond,” Obama said in a December 2011 press conference. However, a top Iranian military official said it had no intention of returning it.

“No nation welcomes other countries’ spy drones in its territory, and no one sends back the spying equipment and its information back to the country of origin,” Gen. Hossein Salami, deputy commander of Iran’s military, told the semi-official Fars news agency, calling it “an act of invasion and belligerence.”

According to DARPA, the design phase of the laser technology will be completed by the end of its 2013 fiscal year. In 2014, fabrication, assembly and testing of the systems will occur with an eye toward full implementation in 2016.

Project Endurance evolved out of DARPA’s Excalibur program, which was designed to “develop coherent optical phased array technologies to enable scalable laser weapons that are 10 times lighter and more compact than existing high-power chemical laser systems,” according to DARPA.

The Thales Watchkeeper WK450 is a Remote Piloted Air System (RPAS) for all weather, Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance (ISTAR) use by the British Army, provided under an £800 million contract awarded in July 2005 to Thales UK. The Watchkeeper is based on the Elbit Hermes 450 UAV. The engine is a rotary Wankel engine. It has a mass of 450 kg and a payload capacity of 150 kg, with a typical endurance of 17 hours. It was originally intended to enter service in June 2010. The Watchkeeper is built in the UK by a joint venture company, UAV Tactical Systems (U-TacS), set up by the Israeli company Elbit Systems (51% ownership) and French company Thales. UAV Engines Ltd, who build the rotary engine in the UK, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Elbit Systems.

It is reported that UAVs will be in every country in the world within 10 years, to include the purchase of vehicles capable of launching missiles at enemy targets. This will change the face of warfare.

Drone technology is quickly becoming the weapon of choice for militaries around the globe and it’s too late for the United States – current leader in UAV technologies – to stop the rush. This is according to Defense One, a website devoted to security issues.

At present the elite drone club includes the US, United Kingdom, Russia, Israel, Iran, Pakistan and China. Other countries, such as South Africa and India, are actively seeking to join. According to the RAND organization another 23 countries “are developing or have developed” armed drones. Experts point to China’s prowess in building knockoff drones, which are expected to flood the market very soon.

Once China (and others) start exporting these, they’re going to be everywhere really quickly. Within the next 10 years, every country will have them. This is according to Noel Sharkey, a robotics and artificial intelligence professor from the University of Sheffield. “There’s nothing illegal about UAVs unless you use them to attack other countries.

Meanwhile, some experts are pointing to the US military’s reduced budget allocations for drone technology (down to $2.4 billion in 2015 from a high of $5.7 billion in 2013) as a sign that the United States is abandoning drone technology for other forms of weapons. Whereas, nothing could be further from the truth.

In December, the US Department of Defense released its 25-year roadmap that aims to make unmanned systems "ubiquitous on the battlefield" – even as the defense budget faces $487 billion in cuts over the next decade.

The Pentagon aims to develop: “fully autonomous machines by 2030 or beyond” (current ‘unmanned’ drones still rely on a human operator). The Pentagon envisions drones that can: “perceive, analyze, plan, react, and make decisions without human intervention.”

Despite the obvious advantages that drone technology offers on the battlefield, the RAND report emphasizes that it is not in itself "transformative." "By themselves, armed UAVs do not win wars, and wars can be won without them." Thus, we may take for granted the change in technology, but the underlying strategies must be human based on day to day political assessments.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2011533/China-building-army-unmanned-military-drones-rival-U-S.html

http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/08/drone-autopilot/?mbid=social11284284

PATENT PENDING - A radical departure from the norm, but then thought leaders may only lead by thinking things through to their logical conclusion - which when forecast many years hence - is bound to appear considerably changed to that we know today. The Bluefish ZCC is a concept for a general purpose platform that might enjoy use as a countermeasure to the increasing number of aerial drones (at the moment enjoying 'uncontested airspace') to log and monitor, and if necessary shoot down airborne vehicles (under human command) that violate sovereign airspace. Strategic patrols of ZCCs could form a shield against invasion, much like the Israeli Iron Dome. A ZCC robot ship is designed to use no diesel fuel to monitor the oceans autonomously and continuously 24/7 and 365 days a year. This vessel would pay for itself in fuel saved every ten years. Any agency employing solar energy for transport will lower their carbon footprint and reduce their energy bill in one stroke. BMS are looking for international development (collaboration) partners to develop the concept and take to market.

NAVY FEARS - A manned ship with a crew is unlikely to be able to fix a large diesel or gas turbine at sea. Nuclear powered ships also require docking for serious breakdowns. Minor issues will benefit a ship by having a crew onboard as a quick fix. The advantage with an unmanned ship is that the robot captain will never leave the ship, maintaining communications, steerage, etc, until relief arrives. For nuclear powered vessels, the advantages are staggering, where the loss of life is eliminated. Submarines would need to be supported to make this work. Contact BMS to find out more.

Whereas, with an older manned ship, breakdown is more likely, but with an unmanned vessel, early warning of potential failures is built into the autonomous regime. Typically, there would be several layers of redundancy in a ship that is designed to operate unmanned. Thus, if a major failure occurred, the vessel might limp to port. This is particularly important with unmanned submarines.