The Marine Corps’ Dragon Eye is now a veteran of the military’s
young unmanned aircraft fleet. Lessons from the battlefield are
driving the second generation of these machines, including integrating
them with ground assets, teaming them in pairs and improving their
sensor capabilities.
The Marines also are planning on adding another unmanned aircraft
to the inventory. Officials cite a “gap” between long-
and short-range vehicles currently employed, said Maj. John Giscard,
head of the aviation combat element branch of the Marine Corps’
Warfighting Lab. The new craft will be used at the regimental level
and will be “fully autonomous from launch to recovery,”
he said at a recent industry conference on unmanned vehicles.
Even though the Corps is now just “defining the requirements,”
he did give a sketch of the new craft’s capabilities. Initially,
engineers would design a land-based system, which would then be
converted for launch and recovery at sea. The sensor package would
include an infrared targeting system that would allow multiple parties
to confirm the location of an object of attention. For fuel, only
a diesel-powered system would likely be purchased, he said.
The Dragon Eye is a five-pound, hand-launched aircraft with a 45-inch
wingspan. It has flown extensively in Afghanistan and Iraq. The
Marines liked the aircraft, but returned to the lab from battle
with requirements it lacked.
High on that list, said Capt. Renee Matthews, unmanned aerial vehicle
project manager at the Marine Warfighting Lab, is the ability for
the camera to zoom in on targets. “Right now the imagery you
get is very stable,” she said. “But when you zoom, you
need to stabilize.”
Also necessary was a longer battery life, and an option for recharging
the energy source. Analysis from Iraq showed that more training
was needed at the command level, and that there was a need for remote
data terminals for battalion combat operation centers.
To gain longer ranges and endurance, the Dragon Eye itself may
change. In one version, the X-63, the wingspan will lengthen from
43 inches to 63 inches, which would give it greater endurance and
better landing accuracy. Directing a landing is especially important
when launched from a rooftop, Giscard pointed out.
One idea that comes directly from the urban battles of Iraq is
pairing Dragon Eyes over hot spots. A second aircraft could have
a different sensor suite, or simply serve as a communications relay
to increase range and reduce the limiting effect of buildings.
Deconfliction issues between various services’ unmanned units
also are becoming a growing problem. “With more and more of
these deployed on the battlefield,” Giscard said, “This
problem is only going to get worse.”
The tendency for unmanned aerial vehicles to trip each other up
involves more than collisions. Matthews said that the Army’s
unmanned Raven aircraft shares a channel with the Dragon Eye. It
often overpowers the smaller Marine craft’s single watt signal.
“We’ve had multiple UAVs operating in the same five-mile
area, and they interfered with each other,” she said. “This
has led to some losses.”
The solution lies in doctrine, not technology, she added. Better
organizing and coordinating unmanned units in the battle space,
as done in Iraq, helps alleviate the problem.
The most serious danger is flying in poor conditions. In Iraq since
March 2004, 22 of the air vehicles have been lost and only five
were taken down by small arms fire. “The vast majority of
losses were due to operator error,” Matthew said. The Dragon
Eyes fly using waypoints, as opposed to an operator’s joystick,
and those errors were caused by decisions to fly in high wind and
poor weather conditions.
The Dragon Eye small unit remote scouting system, consisting of
three aircraft and a ground control station, costs $130,000. New
versions may be deployed by 2006.
Among the longer-term advances pursued by Marines is integrating
other unmanned systems into one control station, which could be
worn, hands-free, by Marines. The family of systems controlled by
the single station would include static sensors guarding a perimeter,
the airborne Dragon Eye and the newly designed unmanned ground unit,
Dragon Runner.
Dragon Runner is a throwable four-wheeled robot. At 15.5 inches
long, 11.25 inches wide and five inches high, Dragon Runner features
an invertible suspension, so Marines can toss the ‘bot through
windows, up stairs or over walls without worry. It was designed
by Carnegie Mellon University, in conjunction with the Marine Corps’
Warfighting Lab.