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OTTAWA — The Royal Canadian Air Force has launched a review of its intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance needs as it tries to determine the right combination of unmanned planes, maritime patrol aircraft and satellites.
“It’s understood all three capabilities are out there and are all needed because they bring their own specific capabilities to the table,” said Maj. Mark Wuennenberg, deputy project director for the Joint UAV Surveillance and Target Acquisition System (JUSTAS). “It’s just the mix that needs to be validated.”
The C4ISR Strategy is expected to be completed by summer.
A contract for JUSTAS was supposed to have been awarded in the fall of 2010, with operating capability for the unmanned aircraft fleet scheduled for February 2012.
The Air Force will start the long-awaited JUSTAS program in the summer after the strategy is finished. Initial operating capability is expected in 2017, with full operational capability in 2019, Wuennenberg said.
JUSTAS includes the procurement of the air vehicles, spare parts, ground stations and a 20-year in-service support package to be provided by the winning bidder. The total cost is expected to exceed 1.5 billion Canadian dollars ($1.45 billion), aerospace industry officials said.
For its surveillance needs, Canada also uses the Radarsat 2 satellite and is planning a constellation of Radarsats as a follow-on project. The Air Force also wants to buy new maritime patrol aircraft, although it hasn’t released many details about that future acquisition.
The C4ISR Strategy is in the process of determining which surveillance assets are best suited for particular roles, Wuennenberg said.
“The questions that have come up are, how many manned [aircraft] do we need, how many unmanned, how many satellites, and what do each provide?” he said.
In the meantime, the Air Force is in the midst of a 1.5 billion Canadian-dollar program to upgrade its existing maritime patrol planes.
On Dec. 9, the first of 10 CP-140s received its completed set of structural upgrades through a life-extension project. The upgrades will allow the fleet to continue operating beyond 2020.
Defence Minister Peter MacKay said the upgraded Auroras will provide improved capability to conduct surveillance operations, both along Canadian coastlines and overseas.
All of the planes are expected to be upgraded with structural and sensor improvements by 2014.
Wuennenberg said the UAVs to be purchased for JUSTAS would be capable of carrying weapons, but the primary role for the aircraft is ISR.
JUSTAS will be used for overland and maritime surveillance, both in an expeditionary role and for domestic operations.
At a minimum, the unmanned air vehicle must be able to transit 1,000 nautical miles, loiter for 12 hours without descending and return to base.
Canada wants the UAVs to carry a range of sensors, including a gyro-stabilized sensor turret that enables the operating crew to covertly detect, identify and track targets at least as small as humans with weapons, and obtain targeting data, day or night. Full-motion video would be available in color electro-optical, infrared and low light.
In addition, the air vehicle will be expected to carry synthetic aperture radar capable of producing high-resolution images and strip maps, as well as detecting ground-moving targets. The radar also would be used in a maritime situation for domestic coastal surveillance.
A number of companies are prepared to bid on the JUSTAS project once a request for proposals is issued.
Those include Canadian company MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (MDA), with a variant of the Heron, and U.S. company General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, which will bid the Predator.
Wuennenberg said the service is committed to acquiring a UAV capability.
“We’re fully resourced,” he said. “We have the money we need. We have the people we need to go ahead to put forth a good robust capability for a UAV squadron.”
Canada leased tactical UAVs for its Afghanistan mission, with MDA and Israel Aerospace Industries working together to provide the Heron aircraft. Contractors provided by MDA helped the Canadian Forces operate those aircraft.
This article appeared in the January-February issue of C4ISR Journal.
