The design and application of unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) for a wide range of civilian and military applications involves many complex considerations regarding their operation. In the military field, future applications extend from tactical to strategic systems, including surveillance/reconnaissance platforms, communications relays, target designators and unmanned combat air vehicles (UCAVs). The challenge for planners and system architects is to provide the flexible and robust infrastructures that these operations will demand Commonality will be important in restraining costs, in promoting multiple redundancies and in providing architectures with the ability gracefully to degrade. The key operational characteristic of these structures will be a sufficiency of command and control (C2) facilities. In order to characterise these requirements, it is first necessary to understand the interplay between the various factors. This paper begins to size the problem by examining the range of possible applications for military UAVs and by considering some of the factors which are likely to impact upon their operation and the C2, communications, computing and information (C4I) systems infrastructure within which they operate. Specific issues include: 1. tasking 2. mission planning 3. mission execution 4. evaluation of UAV missions 5. potential airspace management problems 6. the impact of rules of engagement (ROE) 7. operations in support of Joint and multi-national operations 8. interoperability In a brief presentation, it is impossible to cover these matters in great depth and so particular issues have been selected for discussion.
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