The Effectiveness of Remotely Piloted Aircraft in a Permissive Hunter-killer Scenario

Résumé du livre

This report analyzes the operational effectiveness of three RPA design concepts, plus the MQ-9 Reaper as a baseline, on a "hunter-killer" mission: to find and destroy a specific moving vehicle. The findings are based on the modeling results for a permissive scenario involving a relatively small search area, a short time frame, and restrictive rules of engagement in an urban setting and includes such environmental factors as fog and clouds. This scenario allowed researchers to focus on trade-offs between platform size and number; sensor performance; and the complicating effects of darkness, fog, and cloud cover. With these limitations in mind, the authors offer a series of conclusions, among them that the MQ-9 shows reasonably well against the other design concepts and that improving its sensor capabilities may be cost-effective.