Examination of Witnesses (Questions 107-119)
MR SIMON
JEWELL, MR
DAVID BARNES,
MR CLIVE
RICHARDSON AND
DR MOIRA
SMITH
13 MAY 2008
Q107 Chairman: Good morning. I am very
sorry to have kept you waiting at the beginning of this meeting
but we had a lot of things to discuss about other issues. Could
we begin by asking you to introduce yourselves and give the briefest
of potted histories of what you do and why you are here to give
evidence.
Dr Smith: I am Moira Smith and
I am pleased to be here. I am representing the small and medium
size enterprise firms involved in UAV technology. Obviously the
Defence Manufacturers Association encompasses the whole spectrum
of the defence companies in the UK but I have been particularly
asked to come and give you the perspective of the SME community,
and I am happy to do that today. My particular background, to
keep it brief, is although I have worked for primes in the past
in 1999 I set up a small defence company to bring innovation and
technology as quickly and effectively as possible to service the
defence community. I believe that is why I have been asked to
speak for the SMEs.
Mr Barnes: I am David Barnes and
I am current chairman of the UAVS, the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
Society of Great Britain. I am also the current chairman of the
SBAC's Autonomous Systems Strategy Group and employed by Thales
as a business development director working from Weybridge.
Mr Jewell: I am Simon Jewell.
I worked for BAE Systems but today I am representing the Society
of British Aerospace Companies. I am the chairman of the Systems
Engineering for Autonomous Systems Defence Technology Centre,
which is an MoD activity, and I am also chairman of ASTRAEA which
is a consortium of government, local government and industry which
seeks to open the UK air space for autonomous systems.
Mr Richardson: I am Clive Richardson
and I am the chief operating officer of QinetiQ. Today I am representing
Intellect, the hi-tech trade association. Intellect has a considerable
interest in the whole area of UAVs and UAV systems generally and
its members probably account for something like 10 per cent of
UK GDP across a wide range of subjects. It is increasingly interested
in taking technologies from the commercial sector into the defence
environment. I have also worked for twenty years for BAE Systems
where I held a number of posts. I latterly ran a business called
Insyte which was the defence systems business within BAE principally
engaged in the non-platform end of ISTAR and UAVs in areas of
data analysis and data dissemination.
Q108 Chairman: In the written evidence
we have had there have been references to Unmanned Aerial Vehicles,
Unmanned Air Systems and Autonomous Systems. I wonder if somebody
could give a brief overview of the differences, and the extent
to which these overlap and precisely what is meant by each of
these expressions.
Mr Barnes: There is a lot of confusion
about the terminology used with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles; they
have been called Uninhabited Air Vehicles. The general usage these
days is to refer, in the UK anyway, to unmanned air vehicles as
such. Unmanned air systems are the complete system involving the
UAV as the platform but also reflecting back to the supporting
situation: the environment, the communications links and the other
bits and pieces.
Mr Jewell: The movement that we
are seeing over the years from UAVs to UASs reflects two changes:
one is that the systems historically were piloted remotely whereas
what we are moving towards are systems which are capable of operation
autonomously, or with degrees of autonomy, and hence the movement
towards the autonomous system. The system component is the recognition
that it is not simply the vehicle. The vehicle is simply the platform
of carrying the capability and, therefore, both of those are evolutions
as we move forward.
Mr Barnes: UAV is generally taken
to mean just the platform.
Mr Richardson: The system aspect
I would describe as looking at four key things: you are looking
at tasking the platform, the platform itself, the process of analysing
the information that the platform collects, and then the process
of disseminating that information and passing that information
on. Those four elements would comprise the UAS, the system, rather
than Unmanned Aerial Vehicle.
Q109 Chairman: That was described
to us last week as DCPD.
Mr Richardson: That is Ministry
of Defence lexicon.
Mr Barnes: To clarify, DCPD generally
refers to the ISTAR activity.
Q110 Chairman: It applies to the
UAVs as well.
Mr Barnes: Yes, in that usage
with ISTAR.
Q111 Chairman: Could you give us
a sense of how important the technology behind all of this is
at the moment to the defence industry, and to the British defence
industry, and how you see that developing in the future?
Dr Smith: It is a key technology
to the UK industry at the moment but there are couple of key points
worth making. First of all, UAV or UAS technology is wide ranging
and covers everything, as was said previously, from communications,
electronics, processing, platforms and novel materials. There
are a huge range of technologies there, many of which are seen
as key components and very important within the UK not just for
the military community but for commercial applications as well.
There is a wealth of excellent technology that can be pulled through.
In terms of the benefit of the UAV and the UAS, that is seen as
key as well because most of the companies, certainly SMEs and
the larger primes, are investing in this technology heavily because
they do see this going forward. The technology is here to stay
and it will be built upon.
Mr Barnes: It is important to
note also that whilst the basic technologies exist and are being
developed and are improving, there is still a distance to go in
terms of designing, installing and approving such systems as the
collision avoidance systems.
Q112 Chairman: We are getting on
to air traffic control later on.
Mr Barnes: That is where it is
crucial. The other end of the scale is we also need developments
in communication technologies to cover the links. We will refer
to those later as spectrum problems.
Mr Jewell: I agree with Moira's
statement but just to add to that, we have to recognise that the
core technologies that underpin autonomy in the air are just as
applicable to autonomy on the land and on the maritime surface
and sub-surface. The ability that we can generate through these
systems in the UK is applicable to all of those. Of course it
is just as applicable in the defence, para-military, policing
market as it is in the civil market as well. Whilst people may
have a difference of opinion as to when the technology will mature,
when the systems will be capable of wider application, I think
most people would agree that over time that it is an inevitable
direction path and, therefore, where we are at is a cusp of a
disruptive technology that could be very important to the UK and
that is why I think it represents such a key opportunity.
Chairman: I was talking to John Howe
of Thales this morning and he reminded me that UAVs are very much
being flown at the moment and are very useful in our current inventory.
Q113 Mr Crausby: Reaper, Hermes 450
and Desert Hawk have been procured as urgent operational requirements.
To what extent is UK industry involved in these programmes and
can you tell us in what way?
Mr Barnes: The UK industry is
involved to a degree. All of those programmes, as I am sure you
recognise, were bought overseas. They represent developed capabilities
and they were required for urgent deployment in active theatres.
The UK industrial activity in those programmes is comparatively
small and is not technological and is largely operational assistance
with operations.
Q114 Mr Crausby: What about lessons
learned? To what extent are any lessons in the use of these programmes
being fed back into UK industry?
Mr Barnes: In my view that is
happening but not directly. The lessons learned are being fed
back in terms of changes to the operational requirements now being
put to UK industry by the Ministry of Defence.
Mr Richardson: There is an involvement
in those programmes in certain specialist areas. Getting the equipment
into service in the UK environment is certainly something that
QinetiQ gets heavily involved in. Increasingly, as the other elements
of the UAS system become embedded in the UK ISTAR architecture,
there will be increasing involvement from UK industry around the
analysis and the dissemination of information.
Q115 Mr Crausby: Could there be more
involvement for UK industry? Is it a satisfactory situation that
there is not much involvement?
Mr Richardson: Ideally we would
have had our own platforms and our own programme but that has
not been funded over the years. Consequently, if there is an urgent
operational requirement and there is a system available then it
is in our overall interests that the capability itself is deployed.
We can learn from the use of that capability and then in the future
we will be able to play a much bigger role.
Mr Jewell: It is a sensitive area
because we all recognise the compelling case for an urgent operational
requirement, however that itself should not become the strategy
to provide the capability in the longer term and that is the delicate
balance that needs to be played: the support for current operations
which everybody would support and praise but also the risk that
that investment is coming from investment that would otherwise
be placed in raising national competence. Certainly SBAC would
like the see the balance being maintained between developing national
capability and supporting UOR capability for urgent operational
requirements.
Mr Barnes: Simon said it well
and I cannot add to that except to say there is a danger, and
the danger is in pursuing UORs and keeping them in service for
a long time we will undermine our national capability to develop
and deploy.
Dr Smith: From the SME community
there is a real need to see a pull through of technology, of which
there is plenty, and if there is a platform there we have to have
the knowledge that there is an exploitation path.
Q116 Mr Crausby: Hermes 450 and the
Desert Hawk are being provided as a managed service: ISTAR by
the hour. To what extent do you think that is a pattern that may
become an increasing habit of the MoD and is there some concern
about that?
Mr Barnes: I do not think there
is too much concern about it from industry in that it is a proven
and perfectly respectable procurement mechanism which can be applied
to any vehicle in any situation. We see it as workable and not
necessarily to the disadvantage of UK industry. It would remain
a matter for the MoD as to whether or not it is more efficient.
Q117 Robert Key: I was quite surprised
that the Ministry of Defence told us they have enough UAVs or,
to quote, "in general terms, there is sufficient dedicated
collection capabilities in service or due to enter service".
Do you agree that they have the right number of UAVs providing
ISTAR collection capability?
Mr Richardson: I do at the moment,
yes, but that is my view. They are collecting vast amounts of
data and I would advocate that, within the overall system, we
give enough funding and credence to the other elements other than
the collector so that we know that we can use the information
that is being collected sensibly, that we see genuine operational
benefits from the use of that information and we prove those benefits
before we then move to the next phase which is very much demand
driven: we want more collectors now. If the MoD is saying they
have enough, then they have enough.
Mr Jewell: Industry would always
want to say that it wants to sell more systems. The real point
is the systems that the MoD currently operate do precisely what
Clive has described, which is place a massive burden on the exploitation
of the information chain. The autonomous systems that collectively
we are talking about and developing between the UK companies are
of a type which will reduce that burden. The amount of information
and intelligence which is being applied to the capture of the
information, and then of the analysis of the information, itself
will become more and more autonomous. Whilst, therefore, I would
not necessarily argue with the MoD's point that they have the
right number, I would argue they have the wrong type and, therefore,
the introduction of smarter systems will actually help to reduce
the burden of the information exploitation goal.
Q118 Robert Key: Is that about the
quality of the information collected by the UAV?
Mr Jewell: When you are looking
at the sensor systems on board, clearly you can either be doing
that with a broad swathe, a wide area, or a narrow focus. Today
what the military want is precise information and trying to get
the balance right in today's systems is quite difficult. The next
generation of systems will be more capable of being able to apply
its own control and rationale as to which sensor is using when
and therefore applying more applicable data back to the military
intelligence community.
Mr Barnes: It is important to
recognise here that the MoD has a force mix at the moment which
encompasses fixed wing operations, such as Nimrod, ASTOR, Helix
and the E3 Eagle. Some of that capability in the not too distant
future will disappear. The MoD, therefore, has requirements for
an increased tactical capability through Watchkeeper and, as far
as we can understand, an increased strategic capability through
Reaper-type vehicles. I think the force mix will change over the
years. The MoD will know better than I what it needs in service
at the moment but in the longer term that force mix will change
and, in my view, it will probably embrace more Unmanned Air Vehicles.
Dr Smith: It is understandable
that with the early systems we needed a capability, we needed
vehicles to be up their flying around and the focus was not necessarily
perhaps on the processing that they provide but to be able to
gather the information. We are now at the stage where the focus
can shift. There is a point made about the platforms having certain
capability and there is an emphasis now, very much coming through
from the MoD funding, to look much more at the data deluge problem
and, as Simon says, the use of autonomy to improve how we handle
the data and make the most of it. There is an awful lot of technology
already available which could be put through quite quickly to
help that process.
Q119 Robert Key: I understand this
is about a lot more than just an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle and is
about all the ground support, technical engineering support, analysis
support, communication support. It is a very big package. What
aspects of that package could be improved to increase the effectiveness
of UAVs in providing the ISTAR capability?
Mr Richardson: You are always
going to have a trade-off between the sophistication of the platform
and what is done in the ground environment because of attrition.
If you put too much into the platform itself, and you can have
ever more sophisticated platforms, at some point you hit this
problem that if you are losing them you are losing very valuable
assets. That is a cost capability trade-off that would have to
be done. In terms of what could you put on the platform itself,
you could put more advanced sensor suites. You could put analysis
capability on the platform itself so it is sifting the information
in the air before it sends it to the ground so you reduce the
bandwidth problems which reduces the data analysis capability
on the ground, and so on and so forth. Advanced levels of cryptography,
we need to do more work there, so sophisticated sensors and more
work in crypto. We need to do more work in the secured passing
of information and the assured passing of information. There are
a number of areas that we can continue to invest in.
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