The View from Behind Zio's
E., G.
The View from Behind Zio's Off the spongy asphalt parking lot of a suburban shopping mall in Gaithersburg, Maryland, squeezed in next to a lamp store, an interior decorator, and Zio's Greek...
...Optelecom envisions drones with spools of fiber strands that "pay out" as they fly, like kites on strings...
...Optelecom's president is William Culver, a former RAND Corporation and IBM engineer who, in 1972, the year drones became a subject of discussion inside the Pentagon, decided to strike out on his own...
...Kamikaze drones, coming out of nowhere, could dribble in all day long, like artillery shells, destroying what they hit and driving those they miss mad with fear...
...Israel's drones are larger and DSI's drone, Sky Eye, weighs nearly twice as much as only a two-mile range and must be fired by troops with a clear view of their target...
...Optelecom's current interest is in changing the Army's plans for remotely piloted vehicles...
...William McCorkle, the Missile Command's director, so far there has been Pentagon resistance to the idea...
...Culver advocates instead fiber optics of the type now being used to replace wires in telephone cables...
...According to Dr...
...Weapons of this nature would also pose a neverending threat to Russian forces...
...Followers of military procurement follies will recognize that this scheme bears a haunting resemblance to the TV Maverick missile, which failed even in the most carefully rigged tests...
...The Army's present main antitank weapon, the TOW missile, has single reason Aquila is so much more expensive than everything else," says Gerald Seemann, president of DSI...
...His company has done some fiber-optics research on contract to the Army, -but as yet, little has come of the work...
...Since then Culver has been trying to sell the military, and defense contractors, on two ideas: fiber-optic communications instead of radios, and cheap kamikaze drones instead of multi-million-dollar smart bombs...
...At this writing, a total of 42 tests have taken place (all under the control of Lockheed engineers, not the regular Army troops who would use Aquila) and seven have been classed as failures...
...But one that plays the role and fits the mission...
...The Army's answer, MICNs, is an ultra-tech response to the task-a rotating, high-gain antenna and a high-powered radio set aboard the drone...
...But Culver insists there is a difference...
...Gordon Gould, one of the men credited with inventing the laser beam...
...During combat hundreds if not thousands of radios on both sides will be broadcasting on overlapping frequencies, creating electronic chaos...
...McCorkle estimates the kamikaze-presently known by the unlikely name, FOGM, for fiber-optic guided missile-will cost between $10,00 and $20,000 each...
...But on the battlefield, it is not...
...We took this proposal to some high Army officials," McCorkle said, "and they immediately fell into arguing about which branch would get it...
...Some official' research into this idea has been conducted by the Army's Missile Command at Redstone Arsenal in Alabama...
...Also, they require very little power...
...its capabilities are so limited that, a-GAO report says, the Army "may simply lower the antijam specifications and accept the lesser performance...
...G.E...
...The controversial issue of this contract was what technique would be used to pull the fiber off the spools at speeds simulating the flight of a missile...
...Optelecom proposes an antitank kamikaze RPV with a television camera, a warhead, and a fiberoptic link to a "pilot" miles away...
...Once the target was picked, the drone would dive in and explode...
...Partly, because it would be cheap: "I've talked to several missile manufacturers about this and they all ask me, `Why can't you make it cost more?' One vice president of a big missile company came here to visit and said, `We can't afford to make a cheap missile...
...yet fast enough, considering its small size, that it would be difficult to shoot down...
...the Army aviation division's expensive new AH64 Apache and its $39,000 Hellfire laser missile...
...Culver asked...
...the Army artillery division's' laser-guided' Copperhead homing shell and its plans for an extremely=expensive new homing shell called SADARM...
...Using light as their medium, fiber-optic strands can carry thousands of times more information per size and weight than wires can...
...Another is Dr...
...The radio alone, according to the GAO, will cost' $60 million to develop and will add greatly to the duction authority for Aquila, it did so after just 17 test flights, one of which ended in a crash...
...And so far, MICNS: doesn't work...
...this for a system that is supposed to be able to operate hundreds of times reliably under the most adverse conditions...
...A lot depends on whether we can get the Army to let us leave some of the fancy stuff off, he added...
...An antitank kamikaze controller, on the other hand, would have no distractions over his personal safety, since he would be seated miles away from the scene: no matter how skilled and courageous a pilot may be, it is impossible for him not to worry about his own rear end, or about bringing his vastly expensive aircraft home, while hurtling towards people with guns.' Since the drone would be guided all the way into the kill by human beingssomething as simple as the difference between a tank and a jeep is obvious to every soldier, but costs millions to teach to machines-it would, Culver says, be far more effective than Maverick...
...in addition, jammer systems will be operating on both sides...
...Optelecom exists on the fringe of Pentagon tolerance...
...They also might work...
...An effective antitank drone would jeopardize several treasured Army and Air Force systems: among them the Air Force's $125,000, jet-launched "imaging" Maverick missile...
...The Army, for instance, has just set aside $80 million to develop an infrared nightsight package tiny enough to fit in Aquila...
...Optelecom bid for one contract to test fiber spools for reliability but lost to Hughes Aircraft...
...then the missile's computer takes over, trying to guide it in by analyzing television images of what the pilot last saw...
...Such drones would be much cheaper, since all the communication hardware would be in the ground station, not on the vehicle, and jam-proof, since there would be no use of airwaves...
...Optelecom hand-fabricated an original device that combines an industrial electric motor and two flywheels...
...cost of each Aquila, since the flying part of the systemm must carry,- it...
...This vehicle would cruise over battlefields at a relatively slow speed, 200-300 knots, slow enough that its operator could spot tanks on the ground...
...For a tiny remotely piloted plane, which must stay in constant contact with its base in order to be "flown" and to send back information, communication is a high priority...
...it fits on a desk and costs virtually nothing per test run...
...The strands weigh next to - nothing...
...Hughes proposed using rocket sleds at the White Sands, New Mexico proving grounds to pull the spools, at a cost of $25,000 per test...
...when it runs, company engineers open a delivery door and let the fibers spill into the alley behind Zio's...
...The View from Behind Zio's Off the spongy asphalt parking lot of a suburban shopping mall in Gaithersburg, Maryland, squeezed in next to a lamp store, an interior decorator, and Zio's Greek Restaurant, is the headquarters of Optelecom, a small electronics engineering company...
...Aquila, by the way, will carry a Hellfire/Copperhead "designator" package, which is supposed to allow it to guide those weapons by circling around a target while focusing a laser beam on it-a maneuver far more complex than a kamikaze dive...
...Hughes won...
...Partly because it fits no Pentagon organizational slot: "If you're going to disturb the present roles and missions of the United States Army,"' Culver noted, "they simply do not want to hear about it...
...Army Aviation in particular is not enthusiastic," McCorkle said, "because if you can doo all this with cheap drones, why should...
...The Missile Command envisions a kamikaze weapon that would be rocket-launched, but otherwise would behave like an RPV-:t it would have wings, fly slowly, and be able to circle around a battlefield looking for targets...
...At Optelecom's office the spool-tester sits in a cramped back hall...
...Culver's other obsession, the kamikaze drone, is getting equally lukewarm attention...
...you have attack helicopters...
...The weight specification was written despite the fact that there is no indication RPVs need to be so small...
...A significant portion of the delays and cost escalation in the Army's Aquila program can be traced to its radio system, called MICNS...
...TV Mavericks are carried into battle by attack aircraft, whose pilots must scan the battlefield, aim the weapon, and launch it, all the while dodging opposing fire...
...Can you imagine bringing a general or congressman in to have his picture taken next to this...
...This means that soldiers may fire a few missiles, but then they must run, because by firing they have revealed their position to other tanks...
...its engineers are mavericks, free-spirited, and opinionated...
...One has Sierra Club posters on his office wall' next to aircraft indentification charts...
...Culver believes the drones could fly 15 miles or more under realistic conditions without their electronic tails becoming a problem...
...Like much of the innovative end of the drone business, its offices, and its projects, have a Saturday-morning-tinkering-in-the-garage flavor...
...Ours wasn't expensive enough or big enough to look like a military facility, so the Army wouldn't touch it," Culver said...
...Radio communication may seem, to anyone who has experienced the smallness and phonic quality of a $59 Sony Walkman, the simplest part of any military task...
Vol. 16 • July 1984 • No. 6
