The UK is looking for ‘an autonomous maritime airborne heavy lift capability for the Royal Navy’.
According to a ‘Request for Information’, the MoD is looking for the following:
“The Ministry Of Defence (The “Authority”) is currently seeking information in order to qualify requirements and develop our understanding of the potential for the market to provide an autonomous maritime airborne heavy lift capability for the Royal Navy.
The purpose of this Request for Information (“RFI”) is to enhance the Authority’s awareness and allow for initial review of a range of maritime airborne autonomous capabilities which currently exist or are in development within the marketplace to support the development of the RN’s Autonomy network and the creation of the Future Maritime Aviation Force (FMAF, the rapid transformation of crewed aviation roles (Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance, Communications, Lift and Strike) to uncrewed).
The Authority intends to use the responses to this RFI to inform future decision making regarding the potential supply of maritime autonomous airborne heavy lift capability. For clarity, this RFI is not a bidding opportunity but a means by which industry can provide information to the Authority.“
Back in June, we reported that the Royal Navy was trialling heavy lift drones to supply ships at sea.
The Royal Navy said previously that the use of unmanned air vehicles in the logistics role offers a range of advantages from reduced costs, missions being completed quicker and the ship’s company not being exposed to certain risks.
“NavyX and DARE (Discover, Analysis and Rapid Exploitation) have been working with UK drone firm Malloy Aeronautics and Planck Aerosystems in the development of the unmanned air vehicles for the purpose of moving supplies onto ships.
The heavy-lift drone has already been put through its paces in the harsh environment of the Arctic Circle in the Royal Navy’s Autonomous Advance Force exercise. In northern Norway earlier this year, it proved it could be operated safely in all conditions and could successfully deliver stores.”
You can read more about the previous trials by following the link below.
It will be interesting to see how far this is taken and how soon drones will be used to replace the Merlin in the AEW role, or at least compliment it in some noticeable way.
Well there’s heavy lift like the previous UKDJ article discussed, using all electric battery power, and then there’s a different order of heavy lift closer to what you you are considering using a helicopter turboshaft engine to generate electrical power for the vertical lift and propulsion motors.
The Rhaegal RG-1 is the best example/proxy I’ve seen so far for the type of platform that might support AEW, COD and perhaps even re-fueling roles from a STOVL carrier using a single engine, or perhaps dual engines for heavier lift/greater electrical power capability. https://www.sabrewingaircraft.com/cargo-uav/
Time will tell, but it seems reasonable to presume a viable platform like this will be available for the 2030’s.
I would imagine we will see RN operating UAV systems for replenishment and also AEW by 2030.
Arial Refueling would be somewhat trickier and require a substantially larger UAV and more complex machine, able to carry a significant fuel load and carry it for 200 miles with decent time on station when it gets there.
Replenishment and surveillance by 2030 probably. Perhaps also dropping sonabouys. Integrating an unmanned AEW platform by 2030 seems a bit optimistic, both for the development of the air platform, which is likely to look more like the refueling platform IMO, and because we’d almost certainly want a new AESA radar system.
Leonardo (Scotland) might be the most likely developer for radar, leveraging their Osprey and Captor-E/Tempest radar technology. But such a solution would need to be developed and proven, along with developing radar processing/operation including robust comms that is split between the aircraft and the ship.That’s going to take some time IMO, so probably mid-2030’s earliest. There could be broad demand for such a solution though for a variety of large surface warships, not just VSTOL carriers.
I agree aerial refueling would probably require something larger than the Rhaegal RG-1 I linked to. However, the RG-1 is targeted to have >2,400kg payload with vertical takeoff and a range of 1,000 nmi at that payload. The USN goal for the MQ-25 tanker is 6,800kg of fuel at 500 nmi, so the RG-1 is about a third of the way there on payload in a rough ball park comparison. The main issue with the RG-1 and possibly similar configurations may be low refueling air speed versus the optimum for fast jets.
The Americans tried something like this in the 1950’s/1960’s with the Gyrodyne QH-50 DASH to give ships too small to operate helicopters the ability to drop torpedoes on submarines. Not sure how well that worked then, but with advances in technology I’m sure it’d work a treat now.
Apologies for all the bold type above. I’m not sure what happened, and of course I can’t edit the post now.
For those interested, the RFI can be found here:-
https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/bcac329d-7e85-480e-a619-521cb0fa561d (a downloadable DOCX file).
The RN is seeking information for over-the-horizon operation and >200kg load carrying capability. Not necessarily both at the same time, although the RFI is interested in companies with capabilities or plans for solutions up to >400kg loads and >10km range combined.
How heavy are we talkin’?
The development of drones will certainly assist in addressing some of the deficiencies inherent in VSTOL carriers as opposed to conventional flat tops. I presume that the essence of AEW is still based on line of sight so the drone would need to achieve both altitude and distance from the Mother Ship to maximise this. Can any of you boffins predict whether UAV’s might be developed in the near future that have the endurance,reach and radar to match that carried by such aircraft as on the big American carriers?
Morning Geoff, perhaps when quantum Radar technology matures, we could see systems as capable ….
I’m not sure that quantum radar will help any. The sensor are bigger and clunkier if anything and will probably need to be cooled to have the sensitivity needed.
It’s s purely a matter of weight carrying and electricity generating capacity.
Weight because a big radar weights quite a bit.
Generating capacity because big radars use a lot of juice both for pulse power and for cooling.
There is absolutely no reason why CrowsNest or its successors can’t be UAV mounted in the future. If you can find a UAV that is chunky enough.
OK you would need to have a data link between the back end and the operator console so you would need to decide wether to part process the data aloft to reduce the bandwidth requirements. IRL you would probably push the processing commands back to the UAV so the data was at least part processed before being sent to the surface.
The bit of the conversation that it always puzzles me doesn’t get made more of is the range and sensitivity improvements you would get from flying say three in a triangular formation. If you double the equivalent sensor number you improve sensitivity by root2 or 1.4 times. So 4 flying in formation would give you 1.4 x 1.4 = 1.96 improvement which is actually an awful lot.
Then add the the increased range both from coverage and the sensitivity gain and also add the improve the ability to discriminate clutter (waves are not symmetrical) etc. Situation awareness would improve almost beyond recognition.
Really it is just a matter of time before AEW goes drone. And it is mostly driven by the right platform presenting itself. Which it will in 3-5 years.
Interesting, thanks SB, the tech will have to extremely reliable, as sending a drone plus AEW radar to the bottom would be a very expensive loss!
Yes, the overall range can be improved by using more AEW platforms. However, the individual range cannot be practically improved. Unless you get the drones to fly exceeding close to each other (near enough touching) and use a singular timing signal to control the drones radar transmission, so they can use mutual interference to not only electronically steer the beam, but also use addition to increase the beam’s range.
What using more platforms will do though, is as you say give you target triangulation. By using say three or more widely spaced transmitters, there is a greater chance of a decent return of a small stealthy target. If each transmission was individually codified you have the ability of generating a passive radar network. Where each of the platforms receivers can now use another’s codified signal reflection to build up a picture. Again timing would need to be critical, where each platform is required to know when the other is transmitting and what the signal code is. But it is doable as you can use the GPS clock signal for synchronisation and have the codes data-linked to each platform! Would be enough to give any stealthy platform a seriously bad day.
If you codify the pulses but receive them on multiple platforms – sum the data – FFT it does give the sensitivity boost that I described because the signal will be coherent as opposed to the random noise.
The platforms can be a ways apart, I am not talking about transmit power but receive sensitivity.
These techniques are used in a lot of scientific instruments.
As you say you can also code each – transmitter and receive on all n platforms from various angles. This also gives a sort of look for the return less hole opportunity as well as you can look for deadened reflections caused by something stealthy passing.
I was rather thinking more that one platform would be the active pinger and the other platforms passive.
That way their time on station (fuel use for generation and cooling) would be increased and also only one would present itself as a target for Anti Radar missiles.
That would still give the detect sensitivity gain that is desirable as well as the ability to pick up scatter.
Bi-static radar is still a valid principle today, I mean we did alright with Chain Home back in the day. But technology has come a long way since then. The beauty of using multiple transmitters and multiple receivers is that by varying and hopping the frequencies makes it much more difficult for electronic surveillance equipment to detect let alone home-in on. It also makes it more difficult to neutralise.
What I envisage will be multiple AEW UAV platforms that generate an active-passive network. It combines both lots of active pingers with lots of receivers all operating on different frequencies, but communicating with each other. By flooding an area with multiple waveforms a map can be generated that shows a normal return, i.e. no threats. As soon as threat appears it will be not only be illuminated from multiple directions. It won’t be able to hide by flying parallel to the transmitters where it tries to cancel the doppler shift. This will make it more difficult for stealth aircraft or missiles that concentrate their stealth on a frontal aspect. In fact something with all round stealth will have issues with this type of radar network, as it will be possible to track a “moving hole”. Think of it as a development of the fixed passive network that uses mobile phone transmissions to generate a normal background map, but allows you have target bearing, distance, height and velocity, whereas passive networks can’t do the height aspect.
If the Navy got their act together, it would be just as feasible to do with a ship’s radar, except not via Link-16. However, the radars really need to be an AESA system to have the full benefits, as the frequency range of PESA (within a band) is quite limited, unless you use multiple oscillators that can be keyed in and off to control the base carrier wave.
You are right, I should have been more precise in the answer. Multiple receivers will not only increase the target’s resolution, but will also increase the overall sensitivity of the receiver network proportional to the number of receivers used. Which can increase the detection range against background noise and not the transmitted range.
In the past due to the poorer performance of signal processing. When using multiple filter networks combined with FFT. It was highly probably that a small stealthy target would disappear through the multiple processing loops. Today, signal processing is exponentially more powerful. So we can do filter polling past the 7th node. But can also tie in moving target algorithms simultaneously. Once a system goes completely Gallium Nitride. The self generated noise is dropped by a couple of dBs, which mean we can do more filtering without squishing the very faint signal. Thus increasing not only the transmitter gain and therefore range, but also the receiver sensitivity.
I wouldn’t be expecting quantum based radar being fielded any time soon. If was to be fielded I’d expect it to be fitted to ships first. As these may have the space for the cooling and containment system for holding the second entangled photon pair. Unless they can fid a way of miniaturising the current method that uses a fibre optic as a delay line, as the detection range is proportional to the delay line’s length. I would not expect a quantum radar on an aircraft anytime soon. As they also have to invent quantum memory that could be used instead of a delay line.
It is available today. The Bell V247 Vigilant tilt-rotor prototype has already test flown. It is about the size of a Wildcat helicopter. However, it has a 17 hour endurance (depending on the payload) and can fly to over 30,000ft with a cruise speed over 250 knots. It was part of the cancelled USMC MUX program. It would have been ideal as a small-ish remote AEW platform and a suitable candidate to replace a Crowsnest equipped Merlin for a similar radar performance.
For something that is comparable to the E2D Hawkeye, you would need a much bigger airframe. As not only do you require more electrical generation for a more powerful radar from two turboshafts, but you would also need the payload and fuel capacity to lift a heavy antenna array for a longer duration. Then you will need decide if it will be a fixed planar array like the Erieye/Wedgetail or a mechanical rotating one like the Hawkeye’s. Either will cause issues on antenna size if you’re looking at mounting them on an “Osprey” type of aircraft due to the wing and rotor folding. You could always mount the antenna like the Israeli Phalcon, by mounting the arrays either side of the fuselage, taking in to account the aircraft’s wing which can block the view.
The latest radar in the E2D Hawkeye is the Lockheed Martin AN/APY-9 AESA radar, operating in the UHF band from 0.3 to 1GHz (1m to 0.3m wavelength). A radar operating in this range will need a physically large antenna, due to the operating wavelength, which is why they have stuck with the rotating radome above the fuselage. Due to the long wavelength the natural target resolution is quite bad. It takes a significant and costly amount of signal processing to develop a decent target resolution, but it will never be as good as Crowsnest’s X band radar in this regard, especially when looking for small targets like a sub’s periscope. However, the radar has proven itself more than capable of directing a ship’s missile to a target. What a radar in this band does give you though, is range. The AN/APY-9 is reputed to have a range of about 600km which is significantly more than Crowsnest. Also because of the longer wavelengths, it makes it more expensive to counter using radar absorbent materials (RAM).
The AN/APY-9 radar of the Hawkeye is only part of the story as the aircraft acts as a communications and data node for the fleet and its aircraft. As part of the E2D upgrade they receive the Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC). This is like the the Link-16 datanet, but on steroids! It has a similar bandwidth to 5G whereas Link-16 is more 3G on a good day. CEC allows the Fleet to share its tactical above and below surface information, increasing the overall situational awareness. The biggest advantage it gives is expanding the air defence umbrella significantly.
For Example: A F35 on patrol spots a threatening aircraft heading in the Fleet’s direction. The information is relayed back to the Hawkeye which is then forwarded to the Fleet. The F35 could use its own missiles to take out the target. But when operating in the stealthy mode it has a limited internal payload. So an Arleigh Burke sends a SM2, SM3 or SM6 instead. The tracking information is passed back and forward through the chain. With the F35 providing continuously updated information on the target, before the missile’s active seeker takes over.
The aircraft that replaces the Crowsnest Merlin will need to have a longer range radar, fly higher and for longer, but also have the ability to be a CEC node. So it will need to be a big aircraft with a VSTOL capability. The V22 Osprey is pretty much the ideal aircraft that is currently available. It could also be re-rolled for air to air refuelling which is a “must have” for our F35Bs to extend their reach. The problem with the Osprey is that it is now a 40 year old design and its flight dynamics were compromised due to the requirement of operating from the Wasp class of ships. Bell have moved the tilt-rotor concept on with the V280 Valor. Rather than tilting the whole engine, gearbox and rotor head. It now only tilts a rotor head and a gearbox. This means it won’t suffer as much foreign object damage (FOD) to the engines and the exhaust won’t melt a deck whilst kicking up loads of debris. It also means that when in the helicopter mode the door gunner doesn’t have to aim around the engine!
Hello, is that Bell? This is the UK MOD. we would like a updated version of the Osprey that has the technology updates of the Valor incorporated into it, but at a very competitive price. We would like it to be a multi-role aircraft that can do carrier on-board deliveries, air to air refuelling, anti-submarine work, anti-surface vessel attack, and most importantly host an AEW system with CEC.
I know that I witter on about it a lot but in terms of bandwidth, latency (very important) and availability might OneWeb be an option for the CEC node if/when the constellation is complete and perhaps with some added software bandwidth reservation features added to the software/firmware? The current constellation already demonstrated > 400Mbps bandwidth at an average 32mS latency over a year ago now (https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/07/onewebs-low-earth-satellites-hit-400mbps-and-32ms-latency-in-new-test/). I believe the constellation is intended to have almost 100% global coverage even for the consumer business case and any deficiencies could be plugged by the MoD funding some extra orbits in the constellation but from what I’ve seen that probably wouldn’t be necessary.
Clearly in a consumer environment contention comes into play just as it does with ADSL/cable/FTTC/FTTH but in the at-sea environment we are discussing the only people competing for bandwidth on any satellites whose footprint is covering the area of interest at any given time would probably be unfortunate civilian seafarers who presumably have strayed into a battle zone and would have bigger things on their mind than binge-watching something on Netflix. Even so if mission-critical military applications were being hosted then the constellation could be over-provisioned slightly (at MoD cost?) and the capability added if not already there to exclusively allocate significant bandwidth for encrypted military traffic at any given time or even dynamically flip individual satellites into dedicated military mode as their footprints pass over a battle zone. If that was done the raw bandwidth for a single OneWeb satellite is estimated at 2.17Gbps average, 9.97 Gbps max and for the most part as a straight up-down relay off a single satellite at any given time I would expect the latency to be way better than the 32mS seen in those tests.
I realise that building out the OneWeb constellation will take time but then so does developing and commissioning new manned or unmanned aircraft so I do wonder whether a OneWeb option could be in play here at least for CEC note (I also realise it doesn’t address the airborne radar requirement at all). For CEC though as an added bonus it would also allow higher level command back in the UK, or any other UK military assets anywhere in the world (except submerged submarines of course) to monitor everything in extremely close to real time (i.e. still at sub 100mS latency) which could be useful especially for assets that might be en-route to a battle zone so they can be fully integrated into the tactical picture even hours before arrival.
[ By the time anyone reads this I should have replied to this post with a link to the source I used for data on the per-satellite bandwidth data (I can’t link to it here because I think posts with more than 1 link in them get put into moderation. ]
Link to bandwidth data source as promised …
http://www.mit.edu/~portillo/files/Comparison-LEO-IAC-2018-slides.pdf
It’s interesting to note that the SpaceX and Telsat are concentrating their satellites between the 60 degree latitudes, whereas OneWeb is global coverage. I’m sure with time One Web will improve their data rates and be more competitive with the other two providers.
It does make an interesting situation. The UK Government has a majority share of OneWeb, which has global coverage. Which means technically the military could have 24/7 global communications without paying foreign providers.
The other point is the one you raised where the satellite constellation becomes the data node. It means unlike using the E2D Hawkeye as the node, by using a constellation of satellites it not has only redundancy but resilience to attack. Even if you lost a few satellites, by having a constellation of over 700 means you are still pretty much guaranteed coverage wherever you are. By comparison, the US Navy has make the E2D the weak-link within the CEC network. They have also significantly raised its profile, so that it will be the priority 1 target. By concentrating and taking out the E2D any attacker will have significantly reduced the effectiveness of a Fleets situational awareness.
Personnally I think if we could replace the Crowsnest equipped Merlin with a V247 Vigilent drone. Not only will we have a comparable radar resolution, but we would also have a platform that can provide 24/7 coverage and a reduced cost. The Vigilent can do other tasks such as ASW and shipping strikes. It isn’t big enough for air to air refuelling, so something bigger will be required. But, due to the Wildcat like size, it means we could in theory allow more to be embarked on a carrier (depending on the overall cost). It would also mean that they can be embarked on T26/31/45 plus RFAs for organic AEW cover. If we use the One Web satellite constellation for data networking, anything below 40ms latency is usable. The combination of the two would be a major force multiplier for the Navy.
I don’t think that is enough for CEC.
A modern radar creates massive amounts of data.
To get the full sensitivity gains you need to amalgamate almost raw data and then do the FFTs.
If you process the data or even decimate it then you loose part of the CEC advantage.
It depends what you are trying to do with CEC. Are you looking wideband at GHz SW at say 10-12 bits or are you looking narrow band at a high bit depth for maximum sensitivity and discrimination at say 24 bits. The latter case would work. The former I don’t think would.
I think initially the One Webs average data rate of 8.8GBps would be a significant step change compared to Link 16’s 115.2KBps MSK available from single set. Yes, it’s not the same as SpaceX’s 20.12GBps or Telsats 35.65GBps. Will 8.8GBps be enough to transmit raw data? I’m not sure, but the F35 Multifunctional Advanced Data Link (MADL) is supposed to be in the very high MBps range (US has classified the data rate).
It is against what capabilities do you want the CEC to be able to do. If it’s the “basic” system, where each host processes its own data, then broadcasts the results so that other uses can interleave it with their systems. Then the 8.8GBps network should be able to cope with the data. However, if we are looking at broadcasting the raw data, then we could very easily swamp the data rate capability of the satellite, especially if we have a large task group plus air assets.
I couldn’t find any info on CEC’s data rate, not surprising I suppose since I assume it’s classified. The closest I got was an article referencing “several orders of magnitude faster than Link 16” (I found that last night and didn’t save the link to that reference – sorry). By the way, I assume you meant 8.8Gbps for average data rate of a OneWeb satellite (i.e. “b”its per second not “B”ytes per second). I think there’s also the same typo on the Link 16 bandwidth i.e. it’s also bits per second not bytes per second.
Assuming all figures are bps it means a OneWeb satellite’s average bandwidth is between 4 and 5 orders of (base 10) magnitude greater than Link 16, actually a lot closer to 5 than to 4 orders of magnitude. Not sure where that positions it compared to CEC bandwidth.
I would hope that there is the possibility that increases in overall per-satellite bandwidth might be possible over the coming years although one limiting factor compared to SpaceX and Telsat is simply the size of the satellites. With a OneWeb satellite weighing in at 145kg vs SpaceX 227kg (the 386kg figure in that MIT presentation is out of date) and (according to Wikipedia) 800kg per Telsat satellite it’s not at all surprising given those differences in weight that a OneWeb satellite has less total bandwidth than the others.
All probably true!
This might be a three layer way forward.
1) sharing, as you say, of outputs synthesised together to form a global view – if limited information was required location and vector then this could be done by Link16
2) single point output many detectors. Now this can be implemented, as you say, by having random (or ones in best spot) platforms emitting a coded signal. Data volume squares with doubling of sensors. The data volume is manageable.
3) multi point pings and multi detectors. The issue with this is that the data volume cubes every time you double up and the raw data is a must. Data volumes are huuuuuge.
Interesting discussion.
Wow! Respect for your depth of lnowledge Davey!
..and to all of you boffins. Where else but on UKDJ!
Why not just buy the COD version of the MV22? We’re only likely to need 6, and it could pave the way to buying airframes for the marines, or is what someone, somewhere is afraid of?
MV22 is an old design. And bloody expensive.
As we rehash here endlessly it has a major deign flaw in that the engines and rotor/prop rotate from horizontal to vertical together so all the FOD is blown right into the engine air intakes.
There are better things coming along soon in the UAV arena: best wait.
Also the cost of running just six platforms would be enormous with the support infrastructure costing the lions share.
The CMV-22 is just about to enter service and is far better suited to the role of COD aircraft on a STOVL carrier than anything else out there. It had design faults which have been ironed out and it is far more reliable now than at anytime during is active service life. True it seems like an older design now, but simply put its far better in its role than anything ielse in existence, or on the drawing board.