Examination of Witnesses (Questions 240-259)
DR GRAHAM
THORNTON, MR
JOHN BROOKS
AND MR
ED WALBY
3 JUNE 2008
Q240 Chairman: Mr Walby?
Mr Walby: Yes, I would like to
add to that. About last November the Air Force announced at Beale
Air Force Base in central California, which is the home base for
Global Hawk, that they were going to co-operate in a way that
is relatively new with regard to civil authorities and customs
and border protection in the United States, and they were going
to look into employing Global Hawk on the northern border with
Canada, which is a more porous border than the southern border,
but do it in a way that the aircrew that fly the aircraft for
training would use those borders as training missions, so you
would get double bang for your buck. You would essentially patrol
the border and operate in exactly the same way as you would operate
in combat but, of course, the end solution would be different
in terms of what you did with that information and how you collected
it. There is a movement to use the system in a training environment,
but for use as customs and border protection.
Q241 Mr Holloway: BAE referred to
autonomy as being "the way of the future". What do you
think they mean by that and do you guys share that view?
Mr Brooks: I believe we absolutely
do share that view. Part of the value of our 60 years of focus
and more than 100,000 UAVs of one sort or another is the development
of fully autonomous vehicle management, which we now have on Global
Hawk, on Fire Scout, and which will be a key part of our UCAS
programme, an advanced demonstrator for the Navy. Again, I will
let Ed speak to it because he has experience as a U2 pilot and
commander understanding the challenges of actually flying the
aeroplane and having commanded the first fully autonomous air
vehicle.
Q242 Mr Holloway: What do you mean
by "fully autonomous"?
Mr Walby: Global Hawk has a computer
system onboard, a multi-computer system onboard, and the pilot
uses a mouse and a keyboard. He clicks the mouse for taxi and
a little window pops up and it says, "Do you really want
to taxi now?" and you go "Yes", and it taxies.
The pilot then communicates, it stops at the runway and when he
gets clearance for take-off he hits the take-off button and the
aeroplane replies with, "Do you really want to take off now,
yes or no?" and it moves to the runway and flies. His control
is not a joystick or rudder paddles or a throttle, it is communication
with the computers on board. As a U2 pilot my primary and focused
attention was on keeping the aircraft flying straight and level,
pointy-end forward, and at the altitude and air speed it needed
to be. Because of that, all of my attention was flying the aircraft
and I had very little involvement with the execution of mission.
Obviously as I ran low on fuel I would tell everyone I was headed
for home. In Global Hawk, through our first trials in Australia
when we did a demonstration and later over Afghanistan, we discovered
the pilot became a significant element of the execution of the
mission. He sits right next to the sensor operator. What made
that combination unique was the fact that the air vehicle would
fly, stay airborne, and the pilot had little focus of attention
on his attitude indictors but he also was involved in four chat
rooms in which he communicated with the intelligence folks who
were doing the exploitation, troops on the battlefield, commanders
in the combined air operations centre, and his tasking and process
of employing the asset was not automatic but very human interaction
based on the requirement of that moment. It was designed to be
completely autonomous from take-off to landing, completely hands-off
if that is what you wanted to do. We did not realise back in the
mid-90s that we would have so much interaction and so much human
involvement in the prosecution of the entire mission centre.
Mr Brooks: What it allows us to
do is focus not on how you do it because the aeroplane knows how
to fly, it knows what to do at any given moment, it flies itself.
It allows the entire crew to focus on the value of what it is
you are trying to accomplish. Perhaps that is a good definition
of "autonomy". It is not autopilot. There are those
who define "autopilot" as autonomy. Our systems know
what to do at any given point throughout an entire mission. The
first major overseas deployment was executed with one mouse click
from take-off to landing 28 hours later and at every point along
the way it not only knew what it was supposed to do, it knew what
to do if something went wrong and, absent a new command from you,
would execute that.
Q243 Mr Holloway: It is probably
at rather a low level, but in the UK we are investigating the
sort of military requirement we might have over the next ten or
20 years. Are you guys involved in that? What sort of future capabilities
do you think the UK might want? For example, I do not know whether
Watchkeeper is autonomous. How might your company fit into that
in the future given that we have gone down the route with Thales?
Mr Brooks: I will start and perhaps
each of my colleagues may have something to contribute. I can
tell you that for some years we have maintained a continuing dialogue
with the RAF, for example, on the advanced capabilities that we
are working on, not just the ones fielded today but those that
we are working on for, as you would suggest, late in the next
decade or perhaps in the 2020 timeframe. Your Chief of Air Staff,
Sir Glen Torpy, has maintained a continued interest, has come
to visit us and chats with us frequently and, again, perhaps as
we talked earlier, is assessing what is happening and trying to
decide if these technologies which the US is investing in may
have application for the UK in years to come. There is some involvement
and we would certainly welcome more.
Dr Thornton: On the subject of
ISTAR in the future, along with RAF support we conducted a fairly
comprehensive exercise on Salisbury Plain last October where we
took some Special Forces personnel, an RAF regiment pretending
to be the Army, and some Air Force assets, including C130, the
Tornado, and Nimrod, and we actually did what was described as
being the future for Watchkeeper. We actually fused the data,
transmitted the data to users on the ground. We took Special Forces
camera imagery back up to aircraft. The Tornado was acting in
a close air support role, so it was given targeting information,
real-time video back to its cockpit up to 100 miles out from the
target so it could see what it was supposed to be aiming at on
the ground. That exercise was set up in a matter of weeks. We
were able to adapt the system during the trial, it was very flexible,
and right now the MoD, particularly the RAF, is considering preparation
of an urgent operational requirement which will see that capability
fielded in Afghanistan. In essence, if you listen to the description
of the Watchkeeper in the future it does that internet in the
sky, if I call it that, now. I think the RAF wants to field it
and it is certainly part of the DABINETT thinking.
Q244 Mr Holloway: Given the persistence,
resilience and, I guess, endurance as well of the UAVs, has anyone
ever looked at the possibility of putting nuclear weapons on them?
Mr Brooks: Some of our UAVs do,
in fact, employ weapons. Hunter, which is a tactical UAV, perhaps
in the same broad class as the ones that were previously discussed
but an earlier generation, employs weapons. We have demonstrated
the ability to employ weapons from our Fire Scout and that is
both its Navy and Army configurations, because the United States
Army has selected it as its rotary-winged UAV, will be part of
the capabilities developed. As you get into the higher end, the
Global Hawk type, that really is a policy decision. As I think
the Thales gentlemen said, there is nothing inherently about the
aircraft that prevents it from being used that way but the United
States Government to this point has indicated because this is
capable of operating over such large areas, for over-flight and
basing reasons it views it right now as in our best interests
to declare it to be an unarmed aircraft so that it has access
to airspace that otherwise might be difficult to gain.
Chairman: Because this is an ISTAR inquiry,
I do not really want to get into nuclear weapons or heavens know
where we will stop.
Q245 Mr Jenkins: Dr Thornton, did
I miss something insofar as when you had the exercise with the
RAF, which platform were you talking about using?
Dr Thornton: We put our main server
onboard a C130, but all of the aircraft assets, the ground assets,
individual soldiers with PDAs, were networked in together and
the data was managed accordingly. We did not change any of the
communications links, we did not change any of the configurations
of the platforms, it just got overlaid and did not compromise
their performance. It did do this process of taking real-time
imagery and directing it to people on the ground.
Mr Brooks: This capability he
is talking about is platform agnostic. It does not care what platforms
are there. It is a capability that we have developed, among other
things, to help with managing bandwidth, but we demonstrated it
to the MoD because they had indicated this ability to share data
quickly was something that they were interested in.
Chairman: We will come on to bandwidth
in a few minutes.
Q246 Mr Hamilton: This is on the
direction, processing and dissemination where the MoD seems to
be content with the "collection side" of the ISTAR and
the UAVs. However, it acknowledges that there is a need to improve
"the way the collection of information and intelligence is
directed and the resulting data processed and disseminated."
Is this also an issue in the United States? If so, how is it is
being addressed in the United States?
Mr Brooks: Yes, sir, it is an
issue. If you had US officers sitting here I think they would
express similar thoughts to those which you have heard from the
MoD. I would tell you that these capabilities have to advance
in harmony and that, as we demonstrated, the extraordinary power
of persistence of a platform to not be episodic and pass over
an area every great once in a while, but to maintain surveillance
on a broad area for 24 or more hours, does place new demands,
particularly on the exploitation system but also on the dissemination
system, and it will require some level of manning and particularly
some new tools to help automate that so that it can move forward.
That is not to suggest that we should constrain our ability to
collect down to what may currently be our ability to exploit.
I am reminded of a story almost 200 years ago in my nation when
someone brought forward for the first time the repeating rifle
and it was initially rejected by the Army because they said, "Our
soldiers will shoot themselves out of ammunition in a few minutes
and then we will not have any". It was wiser heads that prevailed
and said, "We can find a way to make more ammunition. We
need to capitalise on the capability". We are moving in that
direction but it does have to go forward in harmony so that you
can capitalise on it.
Mr Walby: We encountered it early
on in the war over Afghanistan, but what we were able to do as
techniques were developed was we took an intelligence group and
attached them to Global Hawk electronically in that as it collected
and processed that imagery it was immediately exploited. Then
as we progressed further we did some experiments on how we archive
that information and now we are to the point where the information
that is collected is archived, categorised and posted on secure
websites for individuals to go and retrieve what they want to
retrieve. The requirements of the collection may be dependent
on a particular day but the information collected may be relevant
to the next day's mission or the next hour's mission. All of that
is at the hands of those throughout the distributed system who
have access to those classified websites. We have even taken the
server on board the aircraft which was the mission recorder and
replaced it with a 1.4 terabyte server and connected that to a
field radio so that a troop on the ground can literally reach
up and pull and retrieve right off the Global Hawk. That is a
capability that could be platform agnostic as well. Because of
its altitude, Global Hawk tends to be a place that you can connect
with other nodes. On the archival of that information, we flew
a Global Hawk in combat for a year and collected every single
image on that server and it only got to about 70 per cent full,
so you have got the entire library of those images on board that
system.
Q247 Mr Holloway: I know nothing
about the angles or the definition of pitch, but could you use
this for facial recognition, for example?
Mr Walby: I do not think that
would be appropriate for Global Hawk. What we have discovered
is what we refer to as layered ISR. Global Hawk's advantage is
to search a broad area, pull up potential targets and pass that
on to other systems. That may employ something like facial recognition,
something that is closer and easier to get the finer detail.
Q248 Chairman: In what sense did
you use the word "appropriate" there? Would not be possible?
Mr Brooks: I do not think we can
comment on that in this forum.
Q249 Mr Havard: I just want to ask
a question. You said you ran this exercise and people had PDAs
on the ground and you were talking about a field radio that could
communicate. The field radio is what I am interested in, what
the infantrymen carry. Are they very specific or could they be
integrated into the Bowman system? Are we going to have infantrymen
again with half a dozen bits of kit all trying to communicate?
Dr Thornton: The whole point about
the exercise we did was it would communicate through existing
channels, including Bowman.
Q250 Mr Havard: So it is software
technology?
Dr Thornton: It is a software
system that recognises the communication link, what is at the
other end of the communication link in terms of the screen resolution
you might have, and it feeds the appropriate data rate and data
resolution down that communication. We are not talking about changing
the communication technology or the hardware, we are not changing
anything on board the aircraft or the land vehicles for that matter.
It is a method of archiving and tagging information for retrieval
and, as I say, being able to be agnostic as to what platforms
we are using.
Mr Walby: In the case of the server
that I spoke of on Global Hawk, it is a small element of software
placed on laptops and PDAs for the troops. It would take me probably
three hours to learn how to use it but it takes a young marine
about five minutes because it is an environment he is used to
and it is based on Google search software.
Mr Havard: I have got a godson like that.
Q251 Chairman: We all know what you
mean.
Mr Walby: It is very, very convenient.
Dr Thornton: Chairman, I am sorry,
I have been passed a note due to my ignorance. The radio referred
to is in service in the UK.
Chairman: Okay. We will now move on to
industrial issues.
Q252 Mr Borrow: In October 2006 the
MoD published its Defence Technology Strategy and in that document
it states: "the UK is world class in several aspects of UAS/UAV
technology and systems development, including the areas of sensor
payloads and synthetic environment based operational concept development".
The Committee would be interested to know is that the view of
the UK industry held in the US, and by your company in particular?
Mr Brooks: Without trying to get
specific, which probably would not be appropriate, there certainly
are areas in which we view technologies in some UK companies as
advanced, as leading edge. There are some cases where we have
entered into discussions about perhaps capitalising on that capability.
We are in a world environment now where no-one has a monopoly
on the best capabilities and we will serve our forces and our
national security best by reaching across transatlantic boundaries
to capitalise on the best capabilities and put them together and
offer them to those who are trying to protect us. Yes, there are
some areas in which we think the UK capabilities are as good as
any.
Q253 Mr Borrow: In your memorandum
you stated: "the UK remains a critically important market
for the company as a supplier base and a source for technology
partners", which is in another form of words what you have
just said to us. Do you see the UK's position in terms of its
industrial base in this area as something that is deteriorating
or under threat, or do you remain confident that it will remain
as robust as it is at the moment?
Mr Brooks: I do not bring extraordinary
expertise to that debate, but if I were to look at it holistically
as an outside observer I would offer that I think there are areas,
perhaps the previous discussion on Watchkeeper and so on is one,
in which there has been substantial investment. There has been
a reference to DABINETT which provides an opportunity for British
forces to capitalise on the sum of all knowledge being generated
within a coalition or allied operation and import data from not
only sovereign systems but allied systems, such as Global Hawk
and some of the others. I do see investment and I do not have
the qualification or the expertise to really critique that.
Q254 Chairman: Dr Thornton, do you
have anything to add to that or were you hoping not to answer!
Dr Thornton: I certainly have
a view. For the Committee's benefit, I spent 31 years teaching
engineering at Oxford and being involved in start-up companies
and technology generally. It comes down to affordability. It is
one thing to use sovereign capability in a phrase rather glibly,
but you have to define "sovereign" for a start, and
I suspect most people know that most of the chips in our avionics
on military aircraft come from Malaysia. How sovereign is that!
I remember Mrs Thatcher answering questions about high explosives
a long time ago around the Falklands War. Affordability is the
word that ought to be in front of everything, affordable sovereign
capability. Frankly, you get what you pay for. Is the quality
of the engineering education system in industry and transition
technology good, yes, it is very good indeed, we are well-known
in the world for being very innovative. We have a little bit of
a hiccough when we try to exploit but there is no shortage of
innovation and investment in the UK in new technology, I do not
think. Somebody has just got to map out what we really mean by
"sovereign capability" and can we afford to be the best,
because there is no point in fielding second-best, particularly
in a coalition situation. If you have a sensor that is only half
as good as somebody else's they will tend to use the other guy's
better sensor, it is just commonsense, so maybe we should become
a niche player in certain technologies so we really are leading
edge and stand up to proper benchmarking against the best. In
the area of electro-optics and radars, UK stands out amongst the
best.
Q255 Chairman: Those are the areas
which you would recommend us to move to?
Dr Thornton: It is not an exhaustive
list clearly but I just pick that out of the air as an area where
I know we do very well technically. I will not say world leading,
that is difficult to say.
Q256 Mr Havard: Can I ask your advice
on that. What the MoD says in the Defence Technology Strategy
is that we are good, and it gives examples, "including the
areas of sensor payloads and synthetic environment based operational
concept development".
Dr Thornton: That is a fair statement.
Q257 Mr Havard: Is that right? Are
those the areas we should continue to concentrate on or are there
others we should become more capable of? If we cannot do the whole
list, what should be the list?
Dr Thornton: That would be my
first choice. Somebody said earlier in the previous session that
the platform is a little bit less important than what you put
on it. In the area of data handling, data processing, intelligence,
creating information out of that data, what do you need? You need
brain power and a computer, you do not need expensive test facilities
such as you might if you were developing large scale missile systems.
Are there other areas? I think in the area of chemical, biological,
radiological sensing, my previous company, Smiths, is undoubtedly
a world leader in that area, witness its sales into the US Department
of Defence. There are pockets around the UK. I think it is quite
instructive sometimes if you analyse UK companies that are exporting
currently into US defence programmes that is normally a test that
the Americans have had to come here. The area of health and usage
monitoring onboard aircraft, the Chinook system that Smith's did,
again that is onboard the F35 and was a UK developed technology
in the South of England backed by DTI grants and so on. Without
me trying to create that list, I think the list can be created
in terms of what is currently exported, and Cobham Group and Ultra
all have high levels of defence exports. You have to ask the question,
why is the US Government buying those technologies to put on its
leading edge platforms. At the sub-system level there are some
very strong areas.
Mr Havard: We are waiting for DIS 2 or
whatever it is going to be called and the technology strategy
that comes with it, but when we get that, Chairman, perhaps we
could have some input on that?
Q258 Chairman: That might well be
something that would be helpful.
Dr Thornton: I would like to do
that. I always say that every menu should have a price with it.
Mr Brooks: I would offer one addition
there and that is in some sense we have focused a lot on the technologies
of collection but, in fact, what is collected becomes most useful
when it is actionable, so that some focus on the ability to capitalise
on ISTAR or ISR is value-added and it is capitalising across a
broad mission set. We focus a great deal today on getting a key
piece of information to a soldier in a specific place at a specific
time, perhaps going back to the facial recognition question you
asked, but that is not the only challenge that those who risk
their lives to defend us will face. There is an almost inevitability
that at some time in some place, somehow, they may face more advanced
threats and need to be able to quickly understand broad thrusts.
For example, if we go back to the combat phase of the Iraqi conflict,
one Global Hawk airframe identified and targeted, according to
US Air Force public statements, almost 40 per cent of the entire
Iraqi armed force. That is a tremendous amount of information
to gather, understand and rapidly move to those who can take action
to deal with those threats and the technologies to do that are
of value here and everywhere else.
Q259 Chairman: I said earlier that
we would come back to the issue of bandwidth, which your memorandum
says is one of the major technology challenges for UAVs. To what
extent is that a major technology challenge in the United States?
How are you dealing with it?
Mr Brooks: It is, in fact, a major
technology challenge. It is this issue of you are blessed with
richness, you now have the ability to collect non-stop persistently
across all of the spectrums essentially day and night, good weather
and bad, imagery and electronics and signals and, therefore, something
has to be done to make that useful. The current approach is largely
a push approach to collect it and push it into the system where
it can be dealt with. That means we have to expand the bandwidth
available. There are also different ways to approach it in terms
of concepts of operation. If I can use the analogy, at your desk
today I suspect you have access to an almost infinite amount of
information across the internet. You do not pull all that information
into your hard drive, you define what it is you are seeking and
your computer offers you a catalogue of what is available and
you choose from what is on that catalogue and say, "I believe
this is what I need to know" and then you pull that information.
In essence, that uses much, much less bandwidth. We believe that
the approach for the future should include both some technology
that allows us to push greater volumes of information across the
bandwidth and tools and procedures that allow us to make most
effective use of the bandwidth that we have. That was really a
part of the purpose of the demonstration that Dr Thornton talked
about earlier that we did at Salisbury Plain, to show how SAS
troopers could understand the catalogue of what is out there and
say, "I only need that piece, give me that one".
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