Moscow’s successful use of electronic warfare (EW) in Ukraine and elsewhere, coupled with the deployment of advanced Russian air defences – arguably some of the best in the world – to Syria has put jamming firmly back in the spotlight, not least for the US Navy and its fleet of EA-18G Growlers.
At the measurement locations inside the prison cell, measured differences in incident power between when the signal jammer was on versus off showed that jammer incident power levels were much greater than that of the ambient CMRS power levels. For the outdoor locations where jamming was not intended, the jammer’s incident power was measurable at 100 feet from the building. However, outdoors the incident jammer power levels were lower than the ambient CMRS levels. This was because the jammer signal strength was lower outdoors than indoors, while the ambient CMRS signals were stronger outdoors than indoors.
As effective, broad spectrum jamming increasingly becomes key to survival in the modern contested airspace, UCLASS and other UAVs will almost certainly be included in efforts to help meet the growing capability demand. With the US Marine Corps due to retire its own fleet of EA-6B Prowlers in 2019 and no in-service replacements in the pipeline, the weight of the EW mission for naval expeditionary airpower will fall entirely on the Navy. Going forward, the NGJ will have a big role to fill.
Jamming is a synonym for intentional interference, which is the deliberate radiation of electromagnetic signals at GNSS frequencies. Hereby, the aim is to overpower the extremely weak GNSS signals so that they cannot be acquired and tracked anymore by the GNSS receiver. Besides military cell phone jammer, which are an integral part of navigation warfare (NAVWAR) strategies, so-called Personal Protection Devices (PPD) are encountered more and more frequently. PPDs are small, light-weight jammers that are easily available via the internet. Their use is of course forbidden in the majority of countries; however, the possession of these devices is not regulated everywhere with the same strictness. Besides intentional interference, unintentional interference also occurs. Some GNSS bands are shared with certain radars, as well as amateur radio. Other sources are Distance Measuring Equipment (DME) used for airplane navigation, TV harmonics, as well as malfunctioning electronic equipment.
Due to the increased operating range and sophistication of advanced integrated air-defense systems (IADS) incorporating active as well as passive search and track capabilities, modern Airborne Stand-off Jammers can only prevail by using disruptive approaches in both software and hardware domain.
Also built-in is the ability to collect, analyse and jam new enemy signals as they occur, enabling the system to adjust in-flight to evolving threat profiles, and apply appropriate counter measures as the situation develops. Its agile jamming flexibility is further extended by the deliberate choice of open architecture, solid-state electronics, which enables quick and easy updates to be made to its on-board threat library as and when required, to meet new hostile capabilities as they appear.