Skip Navigation

The Department of Defense spends about $600 million a year on various programs to develop unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Historically, however, the department has had trouble developing and fielding UAV systems. Currently, two UAVs have been deployed or are in production (Pioneer and Predator), and three more are in development (Outrider, Global Hawk, and Darkstar).

This Congressional Budget Office (CBO) paper reviews the plans, requirements, and costs for the Department of Defense's UAV programs. It also examines five options intended either to address problems in those programs or to make greater use of UAVs' potential as cheap, unmanned reconnaissance systems. The analysis was requested by the Ranking Minority Member of the Senate Committee on Armed Services. In keeping with CBO's mandate to provide objective and nonpartisan analysis, this paper makes no recommendations.

Eric J. Labs of CBO's National Security Division prepared the paper with the assistance of Evan W. Christman and under the supervision of Christopher Jehn, Cindy Williams, and R. William Thomas. Joann Vines of CBO's Budget Analysis Division performed the cost analysis under the supervision of Michael Miller. Evan Christman wrote most of Chapter III. Delia Welsh thoroughly reviewed the manuscript before publication. The authors would also like to thank Rachel Schmidt of CBO for providing many useful comments, and the numerous people from the Air Force, Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Office of the Secretary of Defense, RAND, Bell Helicopter, Canadier, MITRE, the Stratos Group, Israel Aircraft Industries, TRW, and Sikorsky who provided essential information and comments. Of course, all responsibility for the analysis lies with the authors and CBO.

Christian Spoor edited the manuscript, Melissa Burman proofread it, and Cindy Cleveland prepared the paper for publication. Laurie Brown prepared the electronic versions for CBO's World Wide Web site (www.cbo.gov).

June E. O'Neill
Director
September 1998
 
 

SUMMARY

I - PROGRAMS AND MISSIONS FOR UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLES

• A Brief History of UAVs
• The Role of UAVs in Future Warfare
• DoD's UAV Programs
• Problems with DoD's UAV Programs

II - DEVELOPING UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLES: THE ACTD PROCESS

• Why Developing UAVs Has Been Difficult
• How Advanced Concept Technology Demonstrations Work
• Applying the ACTD Approach to Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
• The Effects of the ACTD Approach on the Cost and Capability of UAVs

III - ILLUSTRATIVE OPTIONS FOR DoD'S UAV PROGRAMS

• Option I: Cancel Outrider or Make It Solely an Army System
• Option II: Use Hunter to Meet the Army's Division and Corps UAV Requirements
• Option III: Buy Tilt-Rotor UAVs and Reduce the Army's Planned Comanche Helicopter Force
• Option IV: Use Global Hawk UAVs to Substitute for the Reduction of JSTARS
• Option V: End Darkstar After the ACTD and Rely on Other Systems

---