Opening up the civil market

Simon Lott speaks to two of the key protagonists keeping the UK at the forefront of the technology race. Future prospects for the commercial application of unmanned aerial vehicles are a real mixed bag of familiar and highly conceptual technologies, and with the extremely specialised UAV industry still in its infancy, the leading stakeholders are expending a great deal of effort in mapping the supply chain and ensuring that the right skills and technologies are in place.

The UK, along with the US, has enjoyed a position the forefront of UAV technology with many suppliers and institutions able to support the OEMs in their efforts through a culture of good practice and advanced techniques. BAE Systems for example, sources approximately 75% of components for its Mantis technology demonstrator within the UK.

According to Martin Wright, CEO of the North West Aerospace Alliance (NWAA), the added value of the aerospace industry within the North West cluster is worth five times the regional average, and autonomous systems can be expected to push that figure higher. The NWAA is already very active in encouraging its members to improve their performance and collaborate on areas of key importance with initiatives such as ASCE (Aerospace Supply Chain Excellence). Following a recently commissioned report by Rengeneris Consulting into the potential civil UAV market, the organisation is collaborating with a number of organisations to develop the North West Autonomous Systems Programme (NWASP), which will provide a platform for research and development.

“We're working with BAE Systems and some of the universities and regional development agencies to put this programme together,” explains Wright. “There are two parts to this. One is a supply chain mapping programme talking to user groups and understanding their requirements. The other will investigate the technology surrounding autonomy.
“We've broken these groups down through fairly intensive market analysis. The military areas are well covered but the civil market is expected to be very significant although the territory is somewhat unknown. If we can understand who the users might be within broad categories such as climate monitoring or border control, then that tells us to some extent the range of organisations we are dealing with. This then tells you what an aircraft's mission might be. Once you have the mission, you know what you need in terms of technology.”

As things currently stand the civil market, although anticipated to be equally if not more substantial than military is currently inaccessible as the Civil Aviation Authority has yet to allow any autonomous systems into segregated airspace. Programmes such as ASTRAEA (Autonomous Systems Technology Related Airborne Evaluation & Assessment) have specifically focused on the technical and regulatory challenges to making this happen, one notable milestone being the successful demonstration of a civil search and avoid system on Cranfield University's Jetstream ‘National Flying Laboratory Centre'.

Enhanced integration

With the market in this nascent state, the key element in developing unmanned aircraft for the next generation is adaptability, and as a result, increased collaboration between the OEMs, their supply chains and academia.

BAE Systems' Mantis is the latest embodiment of this approach. Project manager Ian Muldowney explains that to achieve its goals, an increased level of production and cooperation was necessary: “Although it's only a prototype at the moment, we had to try to design and build this system as we would a normal complex flying vehicle as we wanted to prove we could come up with a robust design. From freezing the concept in March 2008 to the first flight took just 19 months. To move at that pace we had to transfer some of that flexibility and working practice to the supply chain.

“We use a ‘best athlete' approach to suppliers based on their relevance to the product and the ability to move flexibly between batches, ensuring the value in production and the strength they bring to the table is a priority. You can then change between different runs, products and different customer bases without too much burden in maintaining the supply chain. It's the way the whole defence industry is going.”

Along with the small HERTI (High Endurance Rapid Technology Insertion) aircraft also developed by BAE Systems, Mantis is one of a new generation of UAVs developed purposefully to adapt to a wide range of applications. A flight testing programme which ran last October and November has confirmed the functionality of BAE's latest guidance and data transmission systems, which have been in steady evolution since the early part of the last decade with programmes such as Kestrel and Raven. It also proved that a high level of integrity, robustness and quality could be achieved in a short space of time.

Muldowney adds: “With Mantis, we took a system capability view, which distilled down into certain values for space, weight, power etc. The ability to change systems easily is inherently built into the system architecture and the physical product. A change that could typically take several months can be done in several days. The only way of doing that is to build that foresight and knowledge into a concept right at the beginning.”

Systematic change

The highly variable nature of such vehicles has required a redefinition of what UAV programmes actually consist of, with some now preferring to use the term ‘unmanned aerial systems'. Given that much development is focused on generic systems such as adaptive routing or mission specific systems such as those based around decision modelling, the method of transport almost becomes a secondary requirement, and this will be important when mapping the supply chain. Wright explains: “Our research suggests that predominantly the volume would be in the smaller vehicles and we're looking at a whole range of applications under areas such as earth science, security and agriculture. The value will be in the equipment carried, how it's integrated and in the science of flying that equipment to give these vehicles a true degree of autonomy.”

In its ability to provide such autonomous systems, the UK is in a relatively good position for several reasons. As technologies diversify, one noticeable trend is that manufacturers are increasingly enlisting the specialist expertise of academia and research institutions to develop concepts and accelerate their incorporation into the supply chain. One of the leading examples is FLAVIIR (Flapless Air Vehicle Integrated Industrial Research), a recently concluded five year programme partly funded by BAE Systems bringing 10 universities together to develop a low cost autonomous aircraft utilising thrust vectoring technology. The conclusion of this, a prototype named ‘Demon', is currently undergoing a series of trials to prove out the technologies involved with a number of different approaches being investigated. BAE believes that the improved aerodynamic efficiency and very low maintenance required by this design will offer a significant cost benefit to operators in the future.

Matt Pearson, former project manager of FLAVIIR says: “This synergistic relationship where BAE has the knowledge to exploit these things in a practical sense and the universities have their research skills to explore concepts further than we can with our exploitation requirements is very powerful. With programmes like FLAVIIR, we've been investing in process development as well as technical development, which give us a much better output. There were a number of people from the universities involved in the original research phase that have gone on to learn how to exploit that research in demonstrations and have now joined BAE or our supplier base as employees.”

Muldowney adds: “If you do all your technical development and rely largely on overseas outsourcing you end up in a position where you're not able to exploit the technology because of restrictions beyond your control so there's value in staying within the supplier pool.”

This strategy of outsourcing specific technologies and components will continue to progress throughout the supply chain, with BAE Systems also giving increased control to major suppliers who can demonstrate their expertise, such as Lola, which produces the monocoque and front fuselage for Mantis. “By involving suppliers in elements of the decision making process, you get much more effective results,” explains Muldowney. “In particular we learnt a lot producing the Mantis front fuselage with Lola. It's a very complex bonded assembly and typical estimates would take 20 weeks from design to delivery, but using techniques learned from the car industry and different materials for tooling, this went down to eight weeks.”

With these factors is mind, the idea of a knowledge-based economy holds increasing value for those at the high end of manufacture, especially with the future that contains so many known and unknown possibilities. Martin Wright points out that the forward look is “not just about getting people interested in manufacturing, but also about a skills adjustment for technology change.” Initiatives such as ASCE and NWASP as well as internal programmes will ultimately aid in facilitating this increasingly collaborative approach and those in the industry are more than aware of the value of doing so, as ultimately, it will be down to the expertise and innovation of the whole supply chain that will allow the UK to make the most of this valuable growth market.

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