Weaponization of lightweight UAS for support of military operations

Given the increasing complexity of modern warfare, the U.S. Army will need to continue to develop and employ new weapon systems in order to maintain U.S. superiority over its current and future enemies. Mission success in the three dimensional battlefield will be achieved by the commander who has the ability to gather quick, accurate, and detailed intelligence, communicate and synchronize with surrounding units, and when necessary, provide a rapid and effective response. In order to achieve these results, the military has recently begun using Unmanned Aircraft Systems, or UASs, for a wide variety of combat support and combat missions. Currently however, the majority of lightweight UASs are used solely for surveillance and reconnaissance. Offering unit commanders the ability to observe areas without endangering their soldiers has become an invaluable asset to lower level commanders; yet the need for UASs to perform more functions than simply reconnaissance has arisen. In modern warfare, such as Iraq and Afghanistan, where the enemy is hidden among the population and snipers and improvised explosive devices are their primary method of fighting, new tactics are needed. As a result, our capstone research team will develop weaponized lightweight UASs concepts and optimize performance solutions for application in the current Global War on Terror. Additionally, the Aviation and Missile Research, Development, and Engineering Center, AMRDEC, has proposed to develop a lightweight UAS with weapon capability as well. Therefore, the work done by this capstone group will ultimately leverage and inform the work done by AMRDEC and their contractors. In order to complete this project, we used the Systems Decision Process (SDP): an iterative problem solving process comprised of four phases - problem definition, solution design, decision making, and solution implementation that focuses on decision-maker and stakeholder value. Finally, modeling and simulation was performed to assess the feasibility and performance of our candidate solutions. Results of the evaluation of candidate solutions will be presented.