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OFF TO A

FLYING START Matthew Medley

Global Industry
Director, A&D at IFS

UAVs are spreading wings – now The Game of Drones in the

watch out for new maintenance defence sector

and sustainment tests AAM use in the defence sector has been up
and flying for many years now with Unmanned
Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) becoming prevalent in use,
though growing in intricacy and operational
capabilities. Over 11,000 Unmanned Aircraft
Systems (UAS) are now being used by the U.S.
Department of Defence for training, delivering
humanitarian aid, and overseas contingency
missions showing that they are here to stay and
help manage and control the ever-increasing
threat involved in the defence sector.

Ground risk reduced by
moving autonomously in the air

AAMs vary in size and scale but all play a pivotal
operational role, from small surveillance drones
capable of going behind enemy lines to large
© Bayratka
UAVs with increased payload capacity. Soon
there will even be UASs capable of deployment
alongside manned aircraft, and with develop-
n the global defence sector, the use of remotely controlled ments like the Boeing Loyal Wingman project
and more expendable aerial assets has seen a tremendous aircraft, this ground-breaking asset can carry
increase due to the benefits they pose in being able to remove out its own separate mission alongside manned
warfighters from harm and address an ever-widening threat aircrafts.
I environment. The market for Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) is This gives us interesting insights into the future
one of the most appealing and lucrative, with many defence com- for AAM in the defence sector, and with a new
panies wanting to be a part of the AAM ecosystem—witness a poll generation of UAVs just around the corner with
at a recent IFS webinar where 48 per cent of attendees wanted to Manned-Unmanned Teaming (MUM-T)
be involved in the ecosystem. technologies designed to help them seamlessly
collaborate with manned aircraft, AAMs are in
Over 100 military organizations are now utilizing a form of AAM. With full flight!
the market already estimated by GlobalData to be worth US$7.9
billion in 2022 and predicted to grow at a Compound Annual Growth Decreasing logistics leading to
Rate of over 4 per cent from 2022 to 2032, there are no signs of this
movement stopping! flexible deployment and helping
humanitarian aid

Potential revenue growth is one of the main attractions for orga- Not only do UASs remove soldiers from danger
nizations to AAM as shown in IFS’s webinar where 63 per cent of but they also bring other operational benefits.
attendees saw potential revenue as the greatest benefit to their Being unmanned, there’s more space for larger
organization. payload capacity, increased intelligence ability
ASIAN DEFENCE TECHNOLOGY SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2023 | 33