Considerations for Enabling Extreme Unmanned Aerial Systems Through Advanced Technologies

Interests in UAS with advanced capabilities, especially in the Groups 1-3 categories is discussed. Potential use cases and exemplary concepts of application are described that illustrate technology challenges that must be addressed to enable extreme UAS performance. Alternative normalized metrics derived from traditional payload, range, and speed are defined, and frameworks that present the state-of-the-art in UAS capabilities are presented. Aircraft cruise, powertrain, and mass fraction efficiencies are assessed to underscore the challenges in enabling radical improvements in performance. The objective is to stimulate ideas for focused basic and applied research in relevant fields to enable transformational improvements in UAS attributes.