Published in Military Embedded Systems
By Jason DeChiaro
The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) is investing heavily in airborne attritable systems as a cost-effective approach to project force and influence. The DoD’s directive to use modular open systems approach (MOSA)-based solutions positions commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) component vendors to meet the form factor, weight, and cost limit requirements of airborne drones uncrewed aerial systems (UASs). This move toward lower-cost and more easily replaced uncrewed systems opens up new opportunities for suppliers of COTS components.
Traditionally, the U.S. battlefield arsenal has included expendable items such as missiles, along with expensive sophisticated manned platforms like fighter jets. Expendable systems are designed and intended to be used once, without the expectation or need for retrieval. For sophisticated manned platforms, such as tanks and fighter jets, however, retrieval is critical due to the monetary cost or mission sensitivity as well as their role in troop safety.
Recently, a third category known as “attritable systems” has emerged, which sits between these two extremes. Attritable systems are intended to go out, perform their mission, and return. The key difference between sophisticated manned platforms and attritable systems is that attritable systems accomplish their mission at a much lower cost so that failure to return will not have a significant overall impact, making it more acceptable if an individual system is lost. Because of their lower cost – compared to the tens of millions of dollars posed by sophisticated platforms such as an F-35 – attritable systems can be built in far greater quantities. While attritable equipment is not actually meant to be expendable, when compared to sophisticated manned systems, a higher rate of loss may be deemed acceptable by the commander.
