Drone "Factory in a Can" Would Change Air War Forever

The Pentagon's research and development arm has laid down a challenge for the defense industry: Give us an armed drone that can carry air-to-air missiles and is inexpensive to produce—oh, and also we need to crank out 500 of them every month. If one of the big defense contractors succeeds at this mission, it will revolutionize military manufacturing and aerial warfare as we know it.

In a video posted earlier this week on YouTube, Air Force Lt. Col. Jimmy Jones, a program manager with the Strategic Technology Office, challenged industry with the Flying Missile Rail (FMR) concept. DARPA's vision is an armed drone that would be carried on the missile rails of Air Force F-16s and Navy and Marine Corps F/A-18. The Flying Missile Rail would fly at 0.9 Mach (690 miles an hour) for up to 20 minutes.

This will be an air combat drone. According to Jones, it would carry at least one and preferably two AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missiles that can strike beyond visual range. FMR would be able to launch its AMRAAMs while on a fighter's wing or in flight by itself.

A key requirement for the program is what Jones calls a "factory in a can." The idea is that the entire manufacturing process—plus materials, electronics, and everything else necessary—must be able to fit in several shipping containers. Any manufacturing process is allowed, but DARPA suggests highly automated advanced manufacturing processes such as computer numerical control (CNC) machining or 3D printing.

The point is that DARPA wants a single factory that can churn out 500 FMRs a month. That may be a lot of drones, but think of the number as part of the challenge. DARPA wants manufacturers to really think big.

Another advantage to the "factory in a can" strategy is that the services could take ownership of the factory and can choose how many drones to build. For example, the Air Force would not need two years and hours of negotiations to purchase an extra 50 drones; a "factory in a can" can produce that many in four days. It would also not have to pay to keep and maintain fleets of hundreds of drones on hand. Every year the services would fire up the factories and crank out a handful of drones to make sure everything still works, then shut down the machinery and walk away.

WE WILL SEE DRONE FACTORIES AT EVERY AIR BASE AND ON EVERY AIRCRAFT CARRIER, COMPLETE WITH THE DRONE'S INTERNALS AND WEAPONS, SHOVED INTO A QUIET CORNER, WAITING FOR A WAR. In the long run, a manufacturing strategy like FMR's is inevitable, and it will be revolutionary. We will see drone factories at every air base and on every aircraft carrier, complete with the drone's internals and weapons, shoved into a quiet corner, waiting for a war. Once war breaks out, the troops throw a switch and the factory starts cranking out drones. Eventually, this will apply to full-sized aircraft, and eventually to air, land and sea weapons.

FMR's ability to fly for 20 minutes at 690 miles an hour will effectively give U.S. fourth-generation fighters such as the F-16 and F/A-18 a buffer area where they can launch their missiles but the enemy cannot. This is particularly important as the AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missile is now 30 years old and increasingly being overtaken in capabilities, particularly range, by the air-to-air missiles of potential adversaries.

In a combat situation with U.S. and enemy fighters flying towards one another, FMR gives the U.S. pilots a choice. If the enemy is flying better planes with better missiles, the U.S. fighter can launch a FMR and turn tail, staying out of the enemy's engagement envelope and letting the drone do the fighting. If the enemy is flying inferior fighters, the U.S. fighter can launch the AMRAAMs hanging off FMR's rails and save the drone for a more dangerous engagement.

How soon will we see FMR prototypes flying? According to LTC Jones' chart, less than two years. Jones thinks that an emphasis on simplicity at all levels and avoiding "feature creep" that increases capabilities (and costs) will keep the project humming along. FMR is the beginning of a revolution in military manufacturing, and the continuation of the revolution in unmanned air combat vehicles. It is the future of warfare.

> All will be rendered useless with EMP.

They would presumably be rad-hardened, like most military and spacecraft gear intended for high-rad environments.

...> All will be rendered useless with EMP. They would presumably be rad-hardened, like most military and spacecraft gear intended for high-rad environments.

RAD hardening deals with bit flipping due to event upsets. RAD hardening uses redundancy and distancing to reduce the likelihood of bit flippinp\g.

Although I have not studied the damage mechanism of EMP in detail, a simple search reveals that it works by generating current or ESD which can damage (permanently) computer equipment.

A nuclear EMP is the abrupt pulse of electromagnetic radiation resulting from a nuclear explosion. The resulting rapidly changing electric fields and magnetic fields may couple with electrical/electronic systems to produce damaging current and voltage surges.

Excerpted from Electromagnetic Pulse

You're correct, I was imprecise -- I used "rad-hard" as a generic term for hardening/shielding against both ionizing radiation and electromagnetic/electrostatic fields/discharges. Strictly speaking, "rad-hard" is only about ionizing radiation (bit-flips, SEUs, totem-pole shoot-throughs, etc.).

In the 1980's I had the opportunity to design spacecraft gear which had to be rad-hard (in the proper sense), and some years later I was designing industrial/consumer gear which had to meet FCC high-voltage discharge (ESD) susceptibility requirements. In my earlier comment I conflated the two categories, which was incorrect, and I thank you for calling me on it.

“All will be rendered useless with EMP.”

This stuff requires satellite communications.

We have the XB-37 which is capable of mining every potential enemy’s satellite network in orbit. At the appropriate time push the button and all go boom.

We are complete idiots if we are not already pursuing this.

I am impressed by your character and passion for truth. You've made my day. What a rare privilege it is to shared bandwidth. :)

Aw, shucks, thanks for the kind words.

I have a lot of respect for my fellow FReepers and I wouldn't want to mislead anybody. Granted it's "just" an internet forum, but FR and Conservatives in general have high standards, and I'm proud to be part of that community.

As for a "passion for truth", well, being an electronics/computer engineer gives you lots of opportunities to find out just how bad things get when you are going down the wrong path. :-)

Thank you again, and have a great rest-of-the-day!

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