.
Interdependent relationships between the following:
.
Switching/Routing
.
Topology Management
.
QoS – packet level
.
Hierarchical management
.
Multiple link interfaces and types per platform
.
Gateway functionality on platforms (legacy, disparate networks)
.
Embedded INFOSEC/network security
.
Performance Enhancing Proxies
While these large stable UAS platforms are ideal for providing theater backbone services, smaller UAS may provide similar networking capability and services on a smaller scale. Additionally, the same networking functions that enable UAS platforms to provide network-centric services to the warfighter also allow the UAS to take advantage of networking to augment their capabilities.
In the future for UAS and networks, the role of autonomy; the definition of team coordination, cooperation, and collaboration concepts; the role of cognitive decision aids; and the importance of air space layer and control are all concepts that need to be developed.
Recommended Investment Strategy: Rely on commercial markets (wireless communications, airliner links, finance) to drive link modulation methods technology. Focus DoD research on increasing the power of higher frequency (Ka) SCA waveform components and decrease size, weight, for UAS applications.
4.3 PLATFORM TECHNOLOGIES
4.3.1 Airframe
Bioengineers and aerospace engineers may soon be working on common aircraft projects. The need for lighter, stronger aerostructures has led from wood and canvas to aluminum to titanium to composites. The next step may well be transgenetic biopolymers. One biopolymer nearing commercialization has twice the tensile strength of steel yet is 25 percent lighter than carbon composites, and it is flexible. In a future aircraft skin made of such a biopolymer, the servo actuators, hydraulics, electric motors, and control rods of today's aircraft control surfaces could be replaced by the ability to warp wings and stabilizers by flexing their skin, much as the Wright brothers first conceived. Signature control would also be enhanced by both the nature of the material and its ability to responsively shape itself to minimize reflection.
Composites have enabled lighter airframes, but the repair of damaged composites is far weaker than the original due to the loss of the material's originally plyed construction, called aeroelastic tailoring. Researchers have recently devised a way to manufacture composite material with embedded microcapsules of "glue," so that any damage will open these capsules and seal the crack before it can propagate. This is known as an autonomic, or self-repairing, material. Further ahead but currently being
Page 51
researched are materials (isomers) that are self-healing, in which the damaged structure regenerates itself to original condition. Such materials would be of most value in long endurance and strike UA.
中国航空网 www.aero.cn
航空翻译 www.aviation.cn
本文链接地址：无人机系统路线图 Unmanned Aircraft Systems Roadmap(53)
