The objective of this project is to finish the construction of a small-scale Tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (TUAV), and then proceed with the flight testing of it. This vehicle is being built for General Dynamics for use in the testing of UAV payloads that they are developing, and to satisfy the requirements of ASEN 4018: Senior Projects. The designation of this TUAV is the X-BW (Experimental Box Wing) Devil Ray.

Aircraft Properties

The Devil Ray is a small remotely piloted aircraft, approximately 7ft in length and span, and has a weight of about 90 lbs when it has a 35 pound payload. It will rely on standard R/C control, as well as have several onboard optical cameras to aid the pilot in controlling the aircraft. Space will also be provided, in the form of storage bays, for the customer’s payload. In the airframe-testing configuration, the aircraft has a take-off speed of about 30mph and cruises at speeds of about 50mph. The vehicle is a canard design with box-wing configuration, meaning the wing and canard are both attached at their most outboard location to the vertical tail, forming a ‘box’ out of the wing, canard, and vertical tail.

Military UAV Background

Current UAV designs employed by the Department of Defense are used primarily for reconnaissance and intelligence gathering and are not equipped with onboard weapons. During Operation Desert Storm, several UAVs were used to spot for long-range artillery, allowing for increased accuracy. These vehicles tended to be nothing more than oversized R/C airplanes with video cameras. At present, the Air Force is developing several UAVs with autonomous flight capabilities, such as the Global Hawk reconnaissance aircraft. The Global Hawk has a several thousand-mile range and its endurance nears 48 hours. Because there are no pilots onboard and the vehicle can be flown autonomously, human fatigue factors are not a consideration. This makes UAVs ideal for long duration, low complexity missions. As of yet there are no UAVs in service capable of delivering weapons, but the DoD is looking for programs to test this capability and will likely begin production TUAV development in the next five to ten years.

The vehicle designed by this team represents a concept for a multi-role naval UAV, which the Navy is looking at developing. A full-scale version of this UAV would be similar in size to a modern carrier based airplane such as the S-3 Viking. Missions for the TUAV would likely include reconnaissance, electronic warfare, anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare, light strike, and suppression of enemy air defenses. The large unmanned fuselage would hold large volumes of electronic sensors and a flight computer to allow it autonomous flight. Although the vehicle will be able to locate, identify and track targets autonomously, it would require any weapons release to be commanded by a remote operator. This process places all uses of force in the hands of a human operator rather than an onboard computer and will help prevent possible friendly fire or collateral damage incidents.

Internal weapons would include JDAM, JASM, Mk. 48 & Mk. 50 torpedoes, laser-guided bombs, as well as conventional munitions. In addition, it would be possible to place larger weapons, such as AGM-88 HARM or AGM-84 Harpoon missiles, on external hard points. This array of weapons would provide the TUAV with a number of possible missions. Because the vehicle has no pilot, it can be sent on high-risk missions, such as suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD) to locate and destroy enemy surface to air missile sites. Additionally, stealth characteristics and advanced computer systems could allow the TUAV increased survivability against incoming threats. Internal space for torpedoes and advanced submarine detection sensors provides the TUAV with ASW capabilities similar to or better than the S-3 Viking currently in use by the Navy.

UAVs provide the military with a valuable platform for performing a wide variety of missions that are difficult for humans, both because of endurance and risk factors. The ability to deliver payloads precisely and with little risk to friendly life provides a decisive advantage to military forces that is not currently available. By taking many of the human factors out of the vehicle, missions can be lengthened and risks reduced to new levels. The primary limiting factors of these aircraft will be the mechanical and physical endurance of the vehicles, which can surpass that of even the best pilots. In the not so distant future, UAVs will be in the skies over hostile areas around the world proving their worth.