The Cost Guard and Unmanned Aerial System

The Coast Guard are a multifaceted group of dedicated young men and women who put their lives on the line daily in defense of this nation. Their duties require search and rescue operations that happen at a moment’s notice. The seas are a traitorous environment and have claimed many lives. To reduce the loss of life, improve response times, supply better intelligence concerning terrorist smuggling routes across the open seas, and provide advanced defense capabilities. The necessities is real and the Coast guard desires a dedicated UAS ready to “fly off its ships” (). Request for proposal (RFP) is seeking an Unmanned Aerial System capable of rapid response search and rescue; as was surveillance and defense.

The period of performance required from the entry date of the acquisition process, pre-milestone A to full rate production of the Unmanned Aerial System. 12 month training and maintenance extension is be included. This process is not to exceed a total 5 years or 60 months from acceptance date to delivery. Figure 1.0 Gnat Chart below depicts the 10 Phase Waterfall. This chart gives detail to the developmental phases and 60 month schedule.

The following requirements are derived from Coast guard two fold necessities that go beyond the scope of search and rescue, to include surveillance necessities. The UAS must provide quick response to search and rescue. In addition an added plus for this vehicle would be vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) capabilities with tilting rotors for hover and stabilization during choppy sea winds. Requirements for this systems will include Command and Control (C2), Air Vehicle, Transportability and Payload. The Coast Guard will provide the ability to transport the UAV for each mission.

Open sea and near coastal operations present critical human implications, timeliness is of the essence. Due to those factors the minimum requirement of for the UAS to perform would for 12-hour flight per a single gallon for loitering operations (Press, 2014). Flight time from base to open sea rescue should be 1 hour to 2 mile radius with high fuel efficiency. During the mission is there is a probability the UAS loses communications. The UAS much have the ability to complete mission and return to base if communications failure occurs.

1 Transportability.

1.1.1 The entire system (to include all elements) shall be transportable in a hardened case and weigh less than 50 pounds.