While unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) provide priceless intelligence without placing pilots in harm’s way, the nation no longer can afford to waste money on redundant UAV systems, a key congressman told UAV contractors.
Rep. Jim Langevin (D), ranking member on the House Armed Services Committee emerging threats and capabilities subcommittee, addressed the contractors at the Unmanned Aircraft Systems East Conference in Washington, D.C. [For a full Who’s Who directory of the House and Senate emerging threats and capabilities subcommittees, please see our upcoming June issue of Special Operations Technology.]
His comments came as Congress is about to consider sweeping spending reductions, including funding cuts in military programs, as part of multiple, major deficit reduction initiatives. On the one hand, Langevin lauded UAVs as immensely valuable, permitting warfighters to gather critical intelligence about the location and actions of enemies.
“Soldiers on the ground have come to rely on and expect the valuable assistance provided by UAVs, either as persistent eyes in the sky or as an armed ally ready to provide added firepower in a pinch,” Langevin noted.
“In fact, our brave men and women in uniform have created such a high demand for the capabilities provided by unmanned systems that [Defense Secretary Robert] Gates has had to personally weigh in on more than one occasion to ensure the department was acquiring enough systems to meet the rapidly growing demand.” UAVs have become transformational game-changers, Langevin said, explaining that “the impact UAVs have had on today’s fight is immense and hard to calculate.”
All that said, there can be too much of a good thing, he cautioned.
Drowning in Data
First, while even tiny UAVs can slip through the air and provide full-color views of enemies, the deluge of data pouring back to U.S. forces can be overwhelming, a tsunami of bits and bytes, voluminous video streams that can require enormous effort to interpret.
“What do we do with all this newly acquired information?” Langevin asked. “How do we analyze all those frames and frames of video intelligence in a timely manner? How do we tag the intelligence within the video so that it may be retrieved and used by an analyst? And how and where do we store all this data?”
Langevin also deplored the reinvention of the wheel, or wing, noting redundancies have emerged throughout the military, costly duplications with a giant price tag.
He challenged the UAV contractors to meet the new imperatives for cost cutting and efficiencies in an era of massive deficit reductions.
“Our other challenge is coordinating the use of UAVs across all of the government agencies that use them,” the congressman explained. “The military itself handles the technology differently between the individual services: the Army, Navy and Air Force all have their own unique UAV systems. The technology is different, and each system is run out of its own control center with its own training center.”
All of this is costing vast sums of taxpayer dollars needlessly, he said, declaring: “This is incredibly inefficient. The redundancy wastes government money and ignores potential efficiencies that could save valuable dollars.”
Therefore, Langevin vowed, he is opening a war on waste, and will use his seats on the intelligence and armed services committees to good effect in campaigning for efficiencies.
Cutting Costs
Not only must there be coordination and consolidation of UAV programs within the Department of Defense, there also must be cost-saving efficiencies with UAV programs run by other agencies, he said.
“In this era of tight budgets, we need to consolidate our efforts,” he told the contractors. “We must create standards for all UAV systems run by the U.S. government, utilize the same technology, and share training centers and other support services.”
Another way to save dollars will be to “co-locate command centers and come up with uniform standards for operation and maintenance,” he added.
“As old UAV systems are retired and we bring new ones online, we must ensure they follow these standards,” he said. “At the end of this transition, we will have one comprehensive, coordinated UAV architecture that allows us to maximize performance while minimizing costs.” To be sure, Langevin acknowledged he is beginning a daunting fight.
“This is a tough challenge,” he said. “Retrofitting all current UAV systems so they are uniform would be incredibly expensive and cumbersome. Instead, we must cross train the UAV operators and technicians in one location so they can operate multiple UAV systems, and we can determine the most capable technology that can do what we need in the field.”
He asked the contractors to embrace change, rather than fight it. “This sounds easy, but as we all know, change is often met with resistance,” he said to the contractors. “This is where you come in. We need you, the companies that develop the technology, to help us get there. You represent some of the best minds in the industry and we depend on your expertise to protect our nation.”
While UAVs can perform dangerous work without risking human life, such as flying over radioactive areas near the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan, it is time for programs producing these immensely useful aircraft to face needed reforms, he announced.
“I am committed to doing this,” he vowed. “Our country deserves no less.” ♦
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الله - الوطن - إنسان السودان الممتهن
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