Why Small Drones Are the Future of Military Reconnaissance
There are currently many large drones flown by the U.S. Air Force. Most of these fall into the category of Group 5. These are primarily the RQ-4 variants, MQ-1, MQ-9, and RQ-170. The U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Army are currently the leading operators of the large UAS.
Flying large drones can be expensive, and although the military budget in the United States is larger than the next seven countries combined, they still try to save money in every way possible. Current news is showing that the Air Force is looking to divest itself of current combat aircraft flown today to save some money. An alternative may be smaller cheaper sUAS or Small Unmanned Aircraft System
Let’s Talk Money
Large unmanned systems such as the MQ-9 cost over $3,600 an hour in 2020 dollars. Comparison to this would be the cost to fly a DJI Mavic Mini at $499 for the system and three batteries that last 30 minutes each. Although the sUAS will not replace the strike capabilities of the MQ-9, the sUAS would be fully capable of FMV or Full Motion Video.
The MQ-9 is flown over a satellite link from a ground station somewhere on Earth. In a real fight against a peer that can defeat satellites, drones will be the first to lose usefulness. A Mavic drone would be flying off a line of site link from someone nearby. This could be anyone inside an aircraft nearby or someone on the ground.
Numbers Game
For the cost of one MQ-9 Reaper, you could buy over $31,000 Mavic Minis. Although these smalls drones don’t have the munitions onboard, FMV clarity is about the same or better. Here is an example of an MQ-9 Feed:
And here is an example of the feed from a DJI Mavic Mini:
The cost to operate and maintain a large sUAS fleet would be much cheaper than maintaining a large fleet of large drones. Without the strike capability, these small drones will primarily fill an ISR role or Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance.
If we can get the same or better capability from the smaller systems, it would be cost-efficient to fly multiple sUAS in place of one MQ-9. The MQ-9 camera is similar to looking through a soda straw. It is difficult to look at more substantial areas for ISR purposes, and they sometimes require guidance from other platforms to tell them where to look. With a small fleet of sUAS, the number of eyes looking for an object would grow exponentially.
Footprint
Most of the MQ-9s require a runway to launch and recover the aircraft. Along with a runway, there has to be a location for a local crew to connect to the aircraft with a line of sight link to ensure they are flying the aircraft with no latency or delay. This type of footprint can add to the cost but also limit the locations where these aircraft can operate. If I use a system like this one being tested by DARPA, I remove the requirement to have operators fly every drone for takeoff and landing.
If we remove the requirement for runways and crews to launch and recover the drones, the system starts to become scalable. This means that I can set up a scan plan for the systems to operate autonomously without requiring humans to monitor. If you aren’t sure what that means, check out this article from the recent news. These drones are flying in a synchronized scan plan over the state for an unknown reason. (If I had to guess, it’s testing out a LiDAR scanning capability for farmers or construction.)
Survivability
If you check the news for ‘MQ-9 Shot Down’, you will find quite a few articles. This platform seems to fall out of the sky very often from enemy fire. Every time a missile shoots down an MQ-9, you are losing millions of dollars for each airplane. If you take that and contrast it with the cost of a small drone, roughly $500, you start to see that a decision must be made. If we fly 20–50 sUAS in an area for ISR, the adversary must choose to shoot an expensive Surface to Air Missile (SAM) at the drones. Even if it hits one of them, they spent a large and costly missile to bring down a $500 drone.
In this article, you can read about how a Patriot missile was used to shoot down a drone. According to the article, the patriot was 3 million dollars. If we assume the drone costs $500, then it’s obvious where this is going.
The Bottom Line
Large unmanned aircraft have their usefulness. They can carry large munitions and stay aloft for many hours. We should not overlook small sUAS in a war where money can be a deal-breaker. sUAS will likely become a staple for reconnaissance missions on all sides of a conflict.