Next Generation Army Electronic Warfare EW Systems

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Next Generation Army Electronic Warfare (EW)
Systems
Distribution A For Public Release
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THE OVERALL CLASSIFICATION OF THIS BRIEFING IS
UNCLASSIFIED
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Next Generation EW System Vision

• Multifunctional, Reprogrammable, Reconfigurable,
  Integrated, Highly Adaptive
• Address all classes of threats with one common
  platform
• Provide feedback on effectiveness to operator
  Battle Damage Assessment (BDA)
• Low-RF signature minimize probability of
  detection
• Small footprint minimize number of operators,
  antennas, and the size, weight, and prime power
  requirements of the hardware platform
• Ability to rapidly upgrade software and add
  hardware to handle new threats
• Minimize electronic fratricide

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Granularity
Disrupt based on identity or characteristic
ONE

• Disrupting ONE, MANY, or ALL threat
  communications may require
• Threat survey capability
• Direction Finding and/or geolocation capability
• Exploitation of threat communications protocol
  layers
• Intelligence from other sources
• Reactive and active capabilities

ID
MANY
Disrupt based on geographic region, comms
network, class of threat, etc.
Disrupt all RF communications within Radio Line
of Sight (RLoS)
ALL
RLOS
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Scalability and Configurability

• Scalability
• Seamless addition of hardware as threat quantity,
  variety, and operating frequency increase
• Seamless addition of platforms when an individual
  platform cannot handle the load
• Automatic synchronization of platforms for
  cooperative attacks by dividing threats among
  platforms or attacking a single threat from
  multiple platforms
• Leverage multiple platforms for geolocation
• Leverage EW system hardware for inter-platform
  communication
• Configurability
• Only those components required for the
  application need to be purchased and deployed
• Common Graphical User Interface (GUI) regardless
  of configuration

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Next Generation Integration
Rapid Integration of New Techniques
New Threat
Characterize Threat and Develop Techniques
Integrate with EW System
Assess Performance

• Minimize transmit time and power

• Simulation
• Laboratory testing
• Outdoor testing

• Software architecture framework
• Leverage integrated COTS components and products
• Adaptive resource management

with representative real-world threat
environment
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Achieving the Vision

• Applying techniques that minimize transmit time
  and power go a long way to achieving many of the
  Next Generation Army EW system objectives
• Facilitates addressing multiple threats and
  threat classes within the same hardware platform
• Lowers RF signature making the system more
  difficult to detect and geolocate
• Reduces RF power required to defeat threat thus
  reducing size, weight, and prime power
  requirements
• Increases time available to conduct real-time BDA
• Reduces impact of Next Generation EW System on
  Blue Force Communications

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Minimize Transmit Power and Time

• Leverage ES to determine potential threat
  frequencies prior to mission and update during
  mission
• Use reactive versus active techniques
• Exploit physical layer structure and higher layer
  protocols to disrupt communications with minimal
  transmission time
• Attack just enough of the information content to
  disrupt communications
• Disrupt critical components and structures of
  physical layer
• Leverage threat communications protocol layers

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Software Framework

• Open, layered, service-oriented architecture
• Open allows anyone to develop capabilities and
  add-ons
• Layering supports rapid insertion of new Digital
  Signal Processing (DSP) / Digital Signal
  Generating (DSG) platforms
• Service-orientation facilitates modification of
  some components without impacting others
• Component-based integration framework
• Addition of capabilities achieved via
  specialization of existing components (behavior
  and interfaces)
• Software development is at a higher level than
  Application Programming Interface (API) /
  Software Development Kit (SDK)

Minimize HW dependent code
Source Network Electronic Warfare Army
Technology Objective (ATO)
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Hardware Framework
Card-Level Devices

• Anyone can develop hardware for the platform
• Components can easily be changed based on
  changing threat or even mission

FPGA ADC
FPGA ADC
FPGA ADC
ICD/Interface
ICD/Interface
ICD/Interface
Power Amplifiers
Controller/GUI
ICD/Interface
Antennas
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Scheduling
Mission Plan
Threat Type 1

• Challenges
• Multi-threat type / multi-mode / multi-band /
  multi-focus
• Dynamic and adaptive resource utilization
• Distributed resources
• Short implementation time scale
• Needs
• Resource discovery
• Resource monitoring / measurement
• Resource partitioning
• Task scheduling

Threat Type 2
Threat Type N
Scheduling
Environment
Source Network Electronic Warfare Army
Technology Objective (ATO)
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Performance Assessment

• Testing Next Generation Army EW Systems will be
  significantly more complicated than testing
  todays systems
• Diverse test environments with a sufficient
  quantity and variety of threat devices that
  dynamically adapt to jamming are required to
  fully exercise next generation systems
• A sufficient number of scenarios need to be
  tested to ensure all Next Generation EW System
  modes of operation are examined
• Scalability and configurability are especially
  challenging to test because of the limitation on
  the number of scenarios that can be examined
• Blue force communication systems need to be part
  of the test environment to verify compatibility
  under all modes of operation

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Summary / Conclusions

• Must get away from Boxology Cant afford a
  new box for every threat
• Future EW systems will need a new paradigm
• Techniques that minimize transmit time and power
• Software framework that is adaptable to new
  technologies, techniques and evolving COTS
  hardware
• Dynamic scheduling to maximize use of hardware
  and deal with target rich and diverse
  environments
• Open platform specifications and tools are key
• Leverage SDR model
• Enable multiple vendors to implement techniques,
  software and hardware