Teal Group analysts released details of their new UAV study during the AUVSI Unmanned Systems Symposium and Exhibition taking place this week at the Anaheim Convention Center.

"The most significant catalyst to this market has been the enormous growth of UAV funding by the US military, tied to the general trend towards information warfare and net-centric systems," said Steve Zaloga, a Teal Group senior analyst and one of the study authors.

"UAVs are a key element in the intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance portion of this revolution, and they are expanding into other missions as well with the advent of hunter-killer UAVs."

The study suggests that the US will account for about 90% of the worldwide RDT&E spending on UAV technology over the next decade, and about 70% of the procurement. These represent higher shares of the aerospace market than for defense spending in general.

"The disproportionate US role in this field is due to the heavier US investment in cutting-edge technologies, and the marked lag time in such research and procurement elsewhere, notably in Europe," said Zaloga.

This follows trends in other high-tech sectors observed over the past decade by Teal Group analysts in such areas as precision guided weapons, information and sensor technology, and military application of space systems.

Teal Group expects that the sales of UAVs will follow recent patterns of arms procurement worldwide, with Europe representing the second largest market and the second most significant center for high-tech research, about 10% of the worldwide total.

Teal analysts expect the Mid-East and the Asia-Pacific regions to be the principal markets for UAVs outside the US and Europe. As in the case of many cutting edge aerospace products, Africa and Latin America are expected to be very modest markets for UAVs.

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