AESA technology will bring precision, power and speed to the Next Generation Jammer, an electronic warfare system Raytheon is developing to replace the legacy ALQ-99 GPS jammer on the U.S. Navy’s EA-18G Growler aircraft. The jammer will combine powerful, agile beam-jamming techniques with cutting-edge solid-state electronics and an open architecture to allow future upgrades.
“A crude jammer might be OK in the desert. Our technology is able to discern one frequency from another. It is built to bring that signal in and match it up with what we have in our library,” CACI Senior Program Manager Jared Salazar told Defense Systems in an interview. “If you are in an environment that already has communications systems, you do not want to jam everything and possibly take out your own communications.”
Many counter-drone technologies, however, are far less dramatic and instead rely on radio-frequency signal jammer to take out the offending UAV. The DoD’s Navy Special Warfare Command in July signed a $1.5 million contract with SkySafe to develop a vehicle-mounted RF jammer that can identify, track and disable enemy UAVs before they can get close enough to do harm to friendly troops.
That said, products like the DroneGun, made by Australian manufacturer DroneShield, are being tested by the DoD for use by the US military. The DroneGun is an RF jammer shaped like a rifle that weighs 13 pounds. It blocks the drone’s 2.4GHz control band at a range of up to 2 kilometers, forcing the drone to either land immediately or automatically return to its launch point (where, presumably, the operator will still be waiting).
In instances where RF jamming is either unavailable or prohibited, there’s always the trusty laser. Boeing, for example, unveiled its Compact Laser Weapons System back in 2015. This portable laser generator runs on a 220V power supply and blasts out a 2Kw beam that can burn through drones in seconds. It’s not as powerful as the 30Kw laser the Army has outfitted its HELMTT with, or the 150Kw version the Navy is currently testing aboard the USS Ponce, but is strong enough to knock UAVs out of the sky.