Unmanned Systems

The Fiscal Year (FY) 2001 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) signed into law a mandate directing the Department of Defense (DoD) to develop and procure Unmanned Systems through FY 2030. These unmanned air, ground, and sea systems are being designed to support Full Spectrum Operations (FSO) in a hybrid-threat environment. The impact for the 2020 Joint Task Force (JTF) is that it will operate with unmanned systems that will revolutionize the way it conducts its operations. Furthermore, the 2020 JTF will be required to leverage cutting-edge information technologies that will ensure a secure and collaborative command and control network in a security environment that is increasingly competitive due to the proliferation of advanced unmanned systems. The challenge then is to posture the 2020 JTF to integrate these revolutionary unmanned systems. The essential tasks are to ensure operational reach and establish operational access throughout operations which are increasingly ready to be accomplished with revolutionary unmanned systems in lieu of manned systems.