Australia’s Precision Warfare Networks Need Advanced Uncrewed Systems

A valuable opportunity is approaching to optimise the Australian Defence Force (ADF) for the declining strategic environment and reduced warning times. The government must seize it.

The Defence Strategic Review (DSR) will afford a fresh look at Australia’s defence priorities and capabilities. The DSR creates a clear opportunity to recognize the exponential value offered to the Joint Force by autonomous uncrewed armed medium-altitude, long-endurance aircraft.

The system ideally suited for Australia, and now being adopted by an increasing list of international customers, is the MQ-9B in both its SkyGuardian and SeaGuardian configurations. The capabilities the aircraft provides at sea and over land would enhance operations in these domains while offering versatile and cost-effective capabilities for joint and combined operations.

No crewed aircraft can achieve what the MQ-9B does: stay aloft for as many as 40 hours while conducting long-range, multi-domain missions from austere forward operating bases with an extremely low footprint. These missions can include anything from supporting military commanders to supporting other government agencies, spanning intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; anti-submarine warfare (ASW); precision dynamic targeting for long-range fires; communications relay; search and rescue; and more – but especially networking for the Joint Force.

Sophisticated defence forces like Australia’s are adding new weapons that enable them to strike with precision at even longer ranges. However, these weapons require seamless, precise, and timely information, including for the engagement of moving targets. Without such information, the billions of dollars of investment planned by Australia for long-range missiles may potentially be wasted.  With its long-range sensors, excellent force networking capabilities, and the ability to respond rapidly and flexibly to tactical and operational tasking demands, the MQ-9B would provide one of the best targeting platforms available to the ADF while complementing other less flexible targeting options. 

And while the MQ-9B can provide excellent targeting for multi-domain strike platforms, it also has the potential to launch long-range weapons itself. A number of MQ-9B customers are now investigating the integration of long-range weapons such as the Joint Strike Missile/Naval Strike Missile to provide strike options in the maritime and land domains.  

Accordingly, the MQ-9B has the utility and flexibility to complete the full spectrum of Find, Fix, Track, Target, Engage, and Assess (F2T2EA) tasks. MQ-9B and earlier model MQ-9A Reaper aircraft have proven their mettle in these roles over and over again, including most recently in the international Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) 2022 exercise, in which Australia also took part. 

An MQ-9B SeaGuardian partnered with an aircraft carrier, cruisers, destroyers, littoral combat ships, unmanned surface vessels, other aircraft, and more to undertake a range of complex missions, including ASW and targeting missions. 

And a U.S. Air National Guard MQ-9A helped ships and aircraft from Australia, Canada, Malaysia, and the United States overcome an opposing force and then culminated the exercise by using real weapons to sink a decommissioned warship.

The unmanned aircraft served as the unblinking eyes, ears, and networking nodes for the strike forces around them operating at sea and in the air.  

The MQ-9B SeaGuardian, operated for the U.S. Navy in the exercise by manufacturer General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc., notched a number of first-ever UAS milestones.

In support of 15 missions totaling more than 111 flight hours, the aircraft took off, landed, and taxied automatically over satellite and handled multiple simultaneous tasks, including networking with U.S. and multinational fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft and surface vessels. 

The aircraft used its electro-optical/infrared and electronic warfare sensors to positively identify and precisely locate targets at long range. The synthetic aperture radar fed detailed surveillance tracks to other units over the Link 16 communications network. And it used its suite of intelligence and networking equipment to nest deeply within the secure communications and operations across the expansive exercise area. 

The SeaGuardian hunted for submarines, conducted long-range targeting, collected electronic and signals intelligence, managed radar tracks, and more—all at the same time, over many hours of long-endurance operations above the ocean.

The aircraft’s multiple sensors and other capabilities reinforce each other: it might, for example, collect electronic intelligence suggesting that a distant target is present, build a geo-location, and then cross-cue its radar or electro-optical/infrared sensor to search for that ship, enabling it to positively identify the vessel. Commanders are provided with the intelligence they require for informed real-time decision-making. 

RIMPAC commanders were able to discern military from civilian contacts and friend from foe. They were able to assign the SeaGuardian to monitor contacts for many hours to obtain pattern-of-life intelligence, exploiting the aircraft’s unparalleled endurance. They also exploited the information from the MQ-9B to make engagement decisions. 

These kinds of capabilities are what make the MQ-9B one of the most in-demand aircraft in its class. The United Kingdom’s Royal Air Force, Japan’s Coast Guard, Taiwan’s Navy, and others are acquiring it to carry out these and other missions. 

A proprietary Detect and Avoid System means MQ-9B operators can comply with “Detect and Avoid” requirements necessary for aircraft integration into the normal flow of aviation traffic just as a crewed aircraft would do.

The MQ-9A Reaper remains on the leading edge of new roles and operations through a number of recent equipment upgrades intended to exploit Multi-Domain Operations. In another recent exercise called Valiant Shield 2022, an MQ-9 aircraft flew from Hawaii to Guam to an airfield on the South Pacific Island of Palau—a place it had never been—and landed without any human control. Not only did the operations prove the ongoing reliability of its automated takeoff and landing capability, but they showed the flexibility of this aircraft. 

MQ-9B aircraft can operate from runways as short as 4,000 feet, go places that people might not expect, takeoff and operate, and then land someplace else, all while requiring a very small logistics footprint and a maximum fuel load of just 6,000 pounds.  No other airborne asset can provide such a cost-effective capability for deployed operations.

RIMPAC and the other exercises proved again that these aircraft are valuable units on their own, patrolling a box of ocean or an important strait to provide constant awareness about what’s taking place in the area on or below the surface. This also included more than a few unplanned real-world examples.

During RIMPAC 2022, an MQ-9A Reaper heard a distress call from a vessel on fire. The aircraft’s pilot asked permission to depart the naval exercise area and investigate. The pilot flew the Reaper toward the vessel’s location, detected it, and coordinated the rescue with allied ships and aircraft in the area. Two people were rescued and flown to a hospital in Hawaii. 

The Australian Defence Force needs proven, low-risk, cost-effective, versatile, multi-domain, assured capability for its future operating environment.  Against the many pressures and competing capabilities being considered by Defence through the DSR, the MQ-9B is one capability that it cannot do without. And the MQ-9B can be acquired in as little as 18 months from contract signature—a time frame now being achieved by other international customers.