Future Remotely Piloted Aircraft Will Do More Than Surveillance: "The widespread introduction of unmanned aerial vehicles to the battlefield during the last decade has been called revolutionary. But their applications so far have mostly been in the reconnaissance and surveillance realm, with only a handful of aircraft able to fire weapons.
Military leaders are beginning think about concepts for the third-generation UAVs. In the future, they will want the drones to do a lot more than peer down on adversaries.
The Air Force sees a world in 15 to 20 years where all its aircraft have an unmanned element, said Col. Eric S. Mathewson, director of the unmanned aerial systems task force at Air Force headquarters."
