In terms of isotropic radiated power, the Next Gen Jammer is “about 10 times the power of what we typically put out in the ALQ-99,” he said. As for capacity, “ballpark, quadruple the number of assignments it can handle” as well as the ability to rapidly beam-switch from “target to target to target” nearly instantaneously.
The next war is going to be fought in the electromagnetic spectrum,” Rear Adm. Michael Manazir, the Navy’s director of Air Warfare, told members of Congress in April, while providing an update on the status of the Next Gen cell phone jammer.
The Next Gen Jammer will respond to these factors with higher equivalent isotropically radiated power, increased number of assignments, digital-based waveform modulations, coherent countermeasures, wideband spectrum, clear spectral output and open architecture, among others.
Implementation principle of electromagnetic interference
In order to jam, the Jammer transmits RF power (CW + Modulation) in the same frequency used by the enemy’s link or network. The enemy’s receiver (the side that “listens”) shall receive both the Jammer’s transmission and its “partner’s” transmission. The stronger one shall prevail; if the drone jammer power is higher than the “partner’s” power, the “listener” will not be able to “understand” correctly the message/data. Alternatively, if the “partner’s” power is higher than the Jammer’s power, the “listener” will probably be able to “understand” correctly the message/data, and the communication link between the “partners” shall continue uninterrupted.
Sometimes the jamming signal arriving at the receiver input, can be lower than the communication (“partner’s”) signal and still prevail. This is happening because usually the receiver needs a certain “margin” between the two signals at its input, in order to be able to interpret one of them (usually the stronger one). However, in advanced communication systems, this “margin” can sometimes be even negative (meaning that the communication signal can be much lower than the jamming signal), and the receiver will still be able to interpret the “partner’s” signal, making jamming a much harder task.