Creating a field that makes the drones drop is more likely the work of a jammer that works on either radio frequency or global positioning satellite signal receivers, or a combination of the two. Spoofing, the non-projectile, non-jamming form of drone interdiction, works by feeding the drone new directional information and directing that drone elsewhere, which doesn’t quite match a drone flying into a cell phone jammer area and then dropping.
The rise of electronic warfare has meant the U.S. Army is increasingly facing contested, congested environments. One of the clearest examples is Russia’s incursion into Ukraine, where the Russians utilized sophisticated jamming techniques to block communications and geolocate units based upon their signature in the electromagnetic spectrum.
The contract calls for improvements to the low, medium and high frequencies of jamming systems on EA-18G military aircraft.
The low-band capability will “deliver significantly improved radar and communications jamming capabilities with Open Systems Architecture that supports software and hardware updates to rapidly counter improving threats” contributing “across the spectrum of missions defined in the Defense Strategic Guidance to include strike warfare, projecting power despite anti-access/area denial challenges, and counterinsurgency/irregular warfare,” Navy budget documents have stated.
IMI’s IRON FIST sensor suite provides the vehicle and crew with a day/night 360º situational awareness, and its APS incorporates two layers of protection: Soft-Kill, using an electro-optic directional signal jammer, and Hard-Kill, based on interception of the threat at a safe distance from the defended platform.
Let’s say we own a smartphone. These devices usually operate in a frequency range of hundreds of mega hertz to a few giga hertz (meaning their waves oscillate millions to billions of times per second, making them radio waves).