UK UAV Procurement Emerges As a Priority

Douglas Barrie/London barrie@aviationweek.com

Placing unmanned aerial systems requirements under a single responsible officer is one of the key recommendations of a new year-long British Defense Ministry and industry study.

Unmanned programs are presently spread across a number of Defense Ministry equipment directorates (DEC), including DEC Deep Target Attack and DEC Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance (Istar). The latter, DEC Istar, is emerging as the favorite to take the lead, suggest industry executives, though there continues to be debate within the ministry as to the choice

Quentin Davies, the minister for defense equipment and support, says that the UAS Capability Investigation, unveiled March 11, has been "very important" to U.K. officials.

"It's enabled us to draw some conclusions about our strategy," he says. Davies adds that there is a need for a "more coherent capability", coupled with more "modularity." He discussed the key findings of the study at a UAV and unmanned systems exhibition and briefing to coincide with the U.K.'s National Science and Engineering Week.

The study looked at the ministry's UAV needs over a 15-year period, to 2023. Alongside proposed restructuring of acquisition management, the introduction of medium altitude and mini-UAVs into the core procurement program were also identified as areas of priority.

Both types of system have already been procured by the Defense Ministry to meet urgent operational requirements - the General Atomics Reaper for the former, and the Lockheed Martin Desert Hawk.

The new study further recommends that future systems operate, as much as realistically possible, using an open architecture environment. One aim would be to allow users to ask general queries about the availability of various types of imagery, rather than this being driven by the collector platform.

It also considered maritime UAS needs, particularly for littoral operations.

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