Tactical RPAS

The outcome is expected to contribute to:

• improving the usage of the civilian airspace for a European tactical RPAS without compromising flight safety;
• decreasing the risk of unmanned ISR missions through the drastic increase of the T-RPAS survivability thanks to the adoption of self-protection measures regarding robustness to GNSS jamming and datalinks contests at the borders of Europe;
• raising a unified airworthiness certification methodology and baseline for Tactical RPAS by all supporting Member States and EDF associated countries (Norway), based on applicable standards, such as NATO STANAG 4671. This will ease the mutual acceptance of Type Certificates for T-RPAS delivered by the supporting Member States and EDF associated countries (Norway);
• opening the way for certification according to applicable standards such as STANAG 4671 by EU Member States and EDF associated countries (Norway) Military Airworthiness Authorities for tactical RPASs with small releasable drones or weapon engagement capability;
• maximising the capability of the tactical RPAS system to operate efficiently in wider operational domains by developing a state-of-the-art Vehicle Management System;
• strengthening the European RPAS industrial base at the front edge of the international RPAS competition, enabling a real EU strategic autonomy in this domain, especially on critical functions.

Due to rapidly and continuously evolving geopolitical conditions, EU Member States and EDF associated countries (Norway) are facing the challenge to carry out operational tasks and military missions, including with relation to Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). This requires a credible tactical picture built in an efficient and timely manner, hence contributing to situational awareness, while helping to manage the battlefield and the forces engaged. For that purpose, a set of Information, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities, notably including tactical Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), is necessary.

As highlighted in commonly agreed capability development priorities, there is a permanent need to detect, identify and track ships, aircraft, vehicles, personnel and other equipment through a continuous air-space wide area, using interoperable unmanned surveillance systems. Such systems should operate with guaranteed data integrity in all weather conditions and all types of environment, including in contested and denied environments. To support this need, tactical remote piloted aircraft systems (T-RPAS) equipped with modern sensors for ISR missions can provide reliable, cost-effective, easily deployable and recoverable means for the effective collection and timely delivery of information for the production of intelligence, situational awareness and decision-making.

Specific objective

The specific objective of this topic is to develop a multi-purpose/multi-role T-RPAS, for the potential use by units of mainly up to divisional size. It will collect tactical level intelligence (real-time target cinematics, terrain, enemy location and movements) with high-performance multi-sensor equipment, through ISR (ground, maritime and air) and targeting missions, in addition to other related tasks (target acquisition, identification, tracking).

T-RPAS pose the problem of operational versatility. Indeed, fitting these platforms with best-in-class performance characteristics could lead to an increase in size and weight, with the risk of losing their tactical specificity. Therefore, the new generation of T-RPAS should meet the need for an efficient payload while being equipped with low SWaP (Size, Weight and Power) vehicle management systems. The aircraft should also have increased endurance and range, in order to maximise its operational availability in a given Area of Interest (AoI).

Most of EU Member States and EDF associated countries (Norway) need to grant a Type Certificate to their RPAS through their military aviation or civil airworthiness authority. Up to now, most systems have been certified according to in-house rules elaborated from existing standards and specificities related to RPAS. Consequently, one challenge is to unify the approach of the supporting Member States and EDF associated countries (Norway) for T-RPAS certification by applying standards widely used in this domain (e.g. NATO STANAG 4671) as well as processes for fixed-wings RPAS of more than 150kg. In that respect, compliance with such standards, also applicable to T-RPAS already under development, must be carefully taken into account from the early design of the proposed new capabilities.

The proposals should target at least TRL 8 (actual system completed and "flight qualified" through test and demonstration) to be validated through extensive flight testing and verification of the level of compliance with applicable airworthiness requirements.

The proposals must address:

• airworthiness type certification and relevant supporting actions for certifying T-RPAS under development that can carry, release and control small Unmanned Aircraft (UA)and/or weapons;
• development of technology blocks to improve the T-RPAS capabilities, notably a vehicle management system (VMS) and parts of mission management system (MMS), allowing T-RPAS effective operations, including in GNSS denied or contested environments, mission autonomy, and weapons engagement.

The unmanned nature of RPAS impacts the VMS and MMS architectures, the level of mission autonomy, as well as the envisioned weapons engagement capability, and requires demonstration and certification of a quantified level of safety, redundancy and accuracy, in line with the functional requirements.

The proposals must substantiate synergies and complementarity with activities described in the call topic EDIDP-ISR-TRPAS-2019 targeting the development of a low-observable tactical RPAS with the capability to provide near real time information and with modern self-protection.

Types of activities

The following table lists the types of activities which are eligible for this topic, and whether they are mandatory or optional (see Article 10(3) EDF Regulation):

Each capability of the T-RPAS should be tested and demonstrated separately.

A flight demonstration is required for the weapon release/engagement capability. The effort should focus on safety with respect to applicable standards in military aviation combined with RPAS specificities. This work will be followed closely by the supporting Member States and EDF associated countries (Norway) military airworthiness authorities in order to define a common weapon integration preliminary standard for T-RPAS.

Supporting Member States and EDF associated countries (Norway) military airworthiness authorities will closely follow airworthiness type certification and relevant supporting actions of T-RPAS under development that can carry, release and control small UA and/or weapons.

Moreover:

• projects addressing activities referred to in point (d) above must be based on harmonised defence capability requirements jointly agreed by at least two Member States or EDF associated countries (or, if studies within the meaning of point (c) are still needed to define the requirements, at least on the joint intent to agree on them)
• projects addressing activities referred to in points (e) to (h) above, must be:
  • supported by at least two Member States or EDF associated countries that intend to procure the final product or use the technology in a coordinated manner, including through joint procurement

and

• • based on common technical specifications jointly agreed by the Member States or EDF associated countries that are to co-finance the action or that intend to jointly procure the final product or to jointly use the technology (or, if design within the meaning of point (d) is still needed to define the specifications, at least on the joint intent to agree on them).

Functional requirements

The proposed product and technologies should meet the following functional requirements:

1. The system to develop should possess the following main top-level capabilities:

• technologies and standards that allow an open architecture, autonomy, modularity, and interoperability according to standards widely used in such fields (e.g. NATO STANAG 4586);
• re-configurable sensor payloads flexibly selectable according to the mission;
• operation in contested and denied airspace environment;
• short take-off and landing (STOL) capabilities;
• long-range, robust, covert and ad-hoc radio communication systems;
• near real-time data processing for target detection, recognition, classification, identification and tracking;
• support of collaborative ISR missions while minimising operator workload;
• cyber-secure and versatile ground station supporting multiple user profiles;
• incorporated sensor suite able to detect and localise enemy threats;
• execution of tactical air reconnaissance missions, which obtain combat information about enemy and population activities and resources through sensing payloads;
• execution of surveillance missions, which focus on systematic observation of airspace, surface or subsurface areas, places, persons or things, by visual, aural, electronic, imagery or other means to collect information;
• equipment with low SWaP (Size, Weight and Power) vehicle management systems;
• release of small UA or weapons, with the capability to control them through the available communication links and the ability to hand over control of small UA to other parties;
• supporting training and exercises for pilots and payload operators, using an embedded simulation system within the Ground Control Station (GCS).

1. Several key aspects of the functions and/or equipment to be installed on T-RPAS should be addressed, notably:

• versatility: functions/equipment/architectures to be implemented on several T-RPAS;
• compliance with standards widely used in this domain, such as NATO STANAG 4586 and NATO STANAG 4671. A European Military Advisory Circular (AC) should be proposed to provide details for acceptable means on showing compliance of a UA VMS to applicable standards and references (e.g. STANAG 4671 / USAR.U1330 (Flight control performance), taking also into account RTCA/EUROCAE, DO-178C and DO-254, as well as SAE ARP94910);
• special conditions covering aspects beyond the applicable standards (e.g. STANAG 4671), as well as the relevant Acceptable Means of Compliance (AMCs), which are expected to be related to small UAs or weapons delivery from the T-RPAS;
• interoperability in terms of ISR product exchange in near real-time;
• cost effectiveness.

1. In particular, the VMS should:

• be capable to effectively manage a T-RPAS in GNSS denied or contested environment;
• enable hand over of control to other remote operators, or other manned assets;
• provide systems and functions that are used to sense and effectively derive vehicle position, airspeed, wind frame angles, inertial velocity, attitudes, rates, and accelerations, heading and altitude;
• provide guidance, navigation and control systems and functions that generate flight path commands and follow these commands by controlling aircraft force and moment producers. The flight path commands should be derived using various sources i.e. way points, curve paths, 4D trajectories or time coordinated paths with other UAS;
• provide control functions for altitude, airspeed, heading, attitude, body and stability axis angular rates, lateral, normal and longitudinal accelerations, aerodynamic or geometric configuration and structural modes, and follow the commands transmitted by a remote operator;
• include flexible data communication interfacing properties.

In any case, the prototyped VMS must be installed and tested in at least one RPAS satisfying relevant standards, such as STANAG 4671.

1. The mission autonomy and safety technology blocks contributing to the MMS, should:

• provide solutions for optimum 2D or 3D almost real-time flight path generation considering a combination of constraints such as:
• threat avoidance and survival of T-RPAS;
• specific information collection, i.e. electronic or signal intelligence;
• EO/IR sensors capabilities;
• emergency landing;
• remote operator defined:
• area coverage for ISR within specific time boundaries;
• spots of high interest;
• avoidance areas, i.e. crowded areas or hot zones;
• landing areas in case of power loss;
• enable remote operators, in their workspace, to define the combination of constraints and to intervene at any time through automatic mode by altering those constraints or switching to manual or semi-automatic mode;
• be capable to engage weapons with specific safety chain and relevant functionalities of the Ground Control Station;
• include scalable level of autonomy to alleviate the workload of the operators and allow more automatic and high-level control of the T-RPAS while preserving safety (i.e. loss of control) and minimising certification needs;
• allow for multiple and reconfigurable sensing payloads depending on the missions, such as airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), maritime surveillance radar, EO/IR imaging sensors, COMINT / ELINT equipment;
• provide on-board processing, to improve mission efficiency and target correlation, avoiding significant loss of information due to datalinks limitations. Data considered could be EO and IR full definition motion video, radar, COMINT, ELINT, etc.;
• provide automatic orientation of the different payloads based on on-board information fusion (e.g. based on available information fusion, the EO/IR payload automatically takes pictures and even identifies targets);
• allow for automatic path alteration for the accomplishment of a high value task, i.e. target identification within a window of opportunity, threat avoidance or emergency landing.

1. The T-RPAS under development and those T-RPAS used for testing and demonstrating the technology blocks must:

• have a maximum take-off weight between 450 and 1250kg;
• have a minimum endurance of 8 hours;
• be able to release at least four small UA with Maximum Take-Off Weight (MTOW) between 10 and 50kg, or weapons. The weapons and the releasable UA must be certified for safe separation and engagement. The releasable UA must also be qualified for safe teaming with the mothership tactical RPAS (including datalinks, latency for critical aspects, C2, guidance and position in GNSS-denied or contested environment, etc.);
• be certified in accordance with applicable requirements and AMCs as per applicable standards, such as NATO STANAG 4671 taking also into account RTCA/EUROCAE DO-178C and DO-254, as well as SAE ARP94910, with additional special conditions related to releasable UA or weapons engagement and delivery from the T-RPAS.

In case the T-RPAS uses a not yet certified engine, certification actions must be proposed accordingly.

Where relevant, type certificate or equivalent from EASA should be considered in order to cover the envisioned non-military functions and systems of the T-RPAS.

A Military Type Certificate must be issued by a competent European Military Airworthiness Authority containing at least: (a) System Identification, (b) System configuration details, (c) Requested operating frequencies, (d) Statement of compliance with applicable standards, such as STANAG 4671 (including if applicable additional conditions, exemptions, and deviations), (e) List of approved publications – Operating and maintenance, (f) Issuing Agency, (g) Date of Issue.