The Broad Area Maritime Surveillance UAV (early artist's version shown here) will be able to fly over areas for long periods before being relieved by another BAMS UAV.

The Navy has a requirement for an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that provides a maritime, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capability that is persistent and with worldwide access. It must be able to carry a sensor suite including sophisticated multi-mode radar, electro-optical/infrared imagery, and signals intelligence electronics, as well as communications relay equipment. The UAVs will be controlled from land and sea, and will provide coverage 24 hours a day, seven days a week over a period of several years through direct line-of-sight communications links and indirect non-line-of-sight satellite links.

How can the Navy be assured that viable industry UAV candidates exist that can meet the Navy requirement for fielding in 2010? Before the Navy asked commercial vendors to bid on the Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) UAV, the first step was to survey all existing industry UAVs and examine their capabilities, costs, and risks to determine if there were feasible candidates.

To analyze the dozens of platform and equipment alternatives, the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations asked MITRE to lead an Analysis of Alternatives (AoA) team. The analysis took about a year and the AoA team's study findings provided input to the BAMS UAV operational requirements document and provided the basis for the Program's competitive procurement strategy.

Assembling an AoA team that has the required breadth of technical expertise and works well together is the key to a successful acquisition strategy. Rick Flanagan, chief engineer at MITRE's Naval Combat Systems C3 Engineering department in the Washington Communications, Command, and Control group, was the study director for the AoA team. "About 25 people from different organizations worked together to evaluate various technologies for performance, cost, and risk," says Flanagan. "In addition to MITRE, team members came from another Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC), the Center for Naval Analyses, and a University Affiliated Research Center, the Johns Hopkins University/Applied Physics Laboratory. Other members came from the Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, and China Lake, California, and the Space and Naval Warfare [SPAWAR] Systems Center, San Diego." The U.S. Air Force also participated, providing information on the Global Hawk and Predator UAVs.

Pulling the Experts Together

The AoA team represented a true joint effort. Members from the Naval Air Systems Command provided expertise on vehicle performance and power plants. Knowledge about sensors, communications, and command and control came from MITRE. We also provided operational experience about how the Navy integrates new platforms into the system. Staff from the SPAWAR Systems Center wrote the command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence support plan for the BAMS UAV.

"Our communications folks worked with SPAWAR to assure there was agreement on communications for both command and control, and general communications from land, ships, and other aircraft," says Flanagan. "A joint team of people from Naval Air Systems Command and MITRE looked at costs. We examined technical risk and schedule risk for the near-term initial operational capability of 2008 to 2010. Naval Operations provided us guidance. It all worked very well."

MITRE, like the other not-for-profit FFRDCs, brings the added value of deep technical knowledge and an unbiased point of view to the team. In addition to its work for the Navy, MITRE works on a number of programs for the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Army, and other Department of Defense organizations.

Flanagan points out that the AoA team did not design the UAV. "It wasn't our job to design the system, but to give clear guidance on the performance, risk, and cost of the various alternatives," he says. "You want industry to come back and give you the best integrated system."

Keeping "SWAP" in Mind

While vendors aren't directly involved in developing the AoA, they may be queried by the team for information about the capabilities of their UAV platforms, for comparison's sake. This gives the AoA team the parameters for fitting the proper sensor suite to the right platform. "For example, we received technical information and applied it to our small, medium, and large sensor and communication suite categories," explains Flanagan. "We also had to be concerned about SWAP. That's space, weight, and power. For each radar system you ask, 'What's the space or volume that's required? How much does it weigh? And what are the power requirements?'"

A critical step for the team was culling the variants into three categories to reduce the number of possibilities. "We ended up looking at 10 alternatives," notes Flanagan. "We looked at the capabilities of the systems in terms of detection and performance, which were mapped out in a set of simple 3D visualization plots."

The AoA team limited the factors for performance to a number that was manageable. "We focused on about five or six factors," explains Flanagan. "More than that and people can't focus well on the factors and make good decisions." One factor, for example, was "payload pound-hours on station." It's the amount of payload multiplied by the amount of time the UAV can stay over target and return safely. This type of analysis helps the Navy save time and money during the acquisition phase of the program.

How Much Risk?

The team looked at risk by following the format that the Center for Naval Analyses used in analyzing the Multimission Maritime Aircraft (MMA). The research and development was minimized because the initial launch time is so near-term. "You're using existing systems and integrating them together, which is often a difficult problem," says Flanagan.

The AoA team, which finished its work in late 2003, received high marks on its review by the government. The BAMS UAV System request for proposals is expected to be released this summer.

—by David Van Cleave

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