Small Power: The Role of Micro and Small Uavs in the Future

The United States Air Force (USAF) will face several difficult choices as it procures unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the near future. Decreasing budgets and increasing UAV costs will significantly impact the Air Forces ability to procure large numbers of high cost UAVs. As defense dollars shrink so will the robustness of the USAFs UAV fleet. In addition these low density assets will operate in a more lethal battlefield environment brought about by the rapid advancement of dual use technologies and the worldwide proliferation of advanced Integrated Air Defense Systems (IADS). Unlike Afghanistan and Iraq future enemy IADS could render high cost conventional UAVs such as the Predator and Global Hawk unviable from an operational risk perspective. However technological advances and new operational concepts such as cooperative behavior and swarming are expanding the capabilities of micro and small UAVs and providing the Air Force with a low cost solution to this potential problem. In the future these small unmanned vehicles will perform many missions once reserved for large high cost UAVs. Procured in large numbers and at a fraction of the cost of todays UAVs micro and small UAVs will be effective force multipliers for the USAF in the future.