The Military Utility of Unmanned Aerial Systems for Swedish Tactical Deliveries : A Defence Systems Perspective

Sammanfattning: There is a rapid development within the unmanned aerial systems (UAS) technologies and the logistics industry leads the research, motivated by potential future profits when used for last-mile deliveries. The military have used unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) for many decades, but the military usage of UAVs for deliveries is almost unheard of.  The main purpose of the study is to theoretically evaluate if existing payload carrying UAVs could increase the Swedish defence-logistics organizations capabilities. This study is delimited to tactical deliveries and UAVs with a maximal takeoff weight of less than 250 kg.  This study begins by investigating the Swedish Armed Forces logistical needs and the capabilities of the existing UAVs. It then performs a research overview in the subject to be updated on the latest insights which are complemented by discussions with expertise in the subject. The theory utilized are Systems Science, Systems Engineering and Military Capability which lay ground to the Military Utility concept which is developed to evaluate the value of military systems to support decision-makers when acquiring new complex systems. To evaluate the military logistics performance, Mosh Kress book Operational logistics was used.  The research is split into three phases, phase one utilizes the insights from the background research to select UAVs to evaluate and to develop three potential scenarios. In phase two the Military Utility evaluation models are developed for each scenario. Phase three evaluates the concept systems performance for the scenarios. The conclusion is that there is circumstantial Military Utility with UAS within the Swedish logistics organization. The potential exists when used for their strengths such as low response time in hard-to-reach areas, and where there is a desire to remove the operators from danger during the transport. Further there is a potential to save operative costs in terms of man-hours, but UAVs are quite vulnerable to electronic disturbances and the cold and windy Swedish climate. The civil airspace regulation is also a major hinder for UAS effective use as well as their limited payload capacity.