UAV Logistic Support Definition

The chapter will present several considerations and hypothesis about R.A.M.S. characteristics and Logistic Support options for operational fleets of UAS. At first a short recall will remember how logistic support is relevant for UAS almost like for other complex systems. It is focused as Logistic Support must be designed and such a design must be driven up jointly with the System design. The relevance of Scenario in defining Logistic Support will be discussed Then is pointed out as Reliability, Safety and Maintainability are relevant aspects for all advanced systems and, in particular, for UAS, explaining how these characteristics can be achieved by Design. Always in the Design phase the Maintenance Program will be defined and, consequently, also the Logistic Support will be defined. Several tools useful for these purposes will be presented and shortly described. Some synthetic considerations will be presented about Transportability that is a characteristic strictly connected to Safety, Reliability, Maintainability and logistic operations too and it is of particular relevance for UAS. Other peculiarities of UASs, mainly deriving from the flight segment and ground segment coexistence, will be presented. Having in mind targets, requirements and constraints at the origin of a fleet of UAS, in addition to the technical features of the UAS, the fleet sizing and the related System Support (elements and strategies) definition is a very complex problem. A useful tool to face this is the stochastic simulation, in particular Monte Carlo methodology. A possible feature of a UAS fleet Simulation model will be exposed and discussed.