L3 Technologies has been selected for a $36 million demonstration of existing technologies (DET) contract award for the U.S. Navy’s next generation cell phone jammer low band (NGJ-LB) program. The DET program encompasses a period of performance of 20 months, culminating in a demonstration at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland.
The Next Generation Jammer will augment, and eventually replace, the ALQ-99 tactical jamming system currently integrated on the EA-18G Growler aircraft.
Consequently, the newly-released drone gun jammer is a lightweight “soft kill” counter-drone jammer which is designed for use on remote weapon stations (unmanned gun systems) as part of a combined “hard kill/soft kill” layered system. It is system-agnostic and can be integrated with any third party remote weapon station, thus allowing manufacturers of unmanned weapons systems to add a “soft kill” option to their existing products, which may already be in service.
The drone gun jammer is a lightweight, soft kill, drone jamming solution for use on remote weapon stations. The DroneCannon RW module will force drones (single or swarm attack) into a fail-safe mode where they will either hover or slowly descend. This function will allow the operator to utilize a kinetic weapon or other mounted equipment to more easily neutralize the target. Included Perfectjammer jamming technology has been developed specifically for drone mitigation, offering an effective response to an urgent threat.
The automated system, having a long-range radar surveillance, daylight cameras, infrared, target tracking software, radio frequency (RF) jammer system and other sophisticated controls, can shoot down a drone up to several kilometres or usurp its command, or jam its functions without disturbing air traffic.
While the Russian army, and the Soviet army before it, long has operated R.F.-signal jammer, it wasn’t until October 2017 that the Kremlin stood up its first ground-based unit specializing in defeating enemy drones.
NGJ-LB is an external jamming pod that is part of a larger NGJ weapon system that will boost and ultimately replace the older ALQ-99 Tactical Jamming System technology currently used on EA-18G Growler aircraft.