Electronic Warfare Test

In order to establish dominance in the modern battlespace, our offensive and defensive electronic warfare systems must be capable against advanced radio frequency (RF) directed threats and electro-optic (EO) guided threats, which include infrared (IR) guidance. Ensured dominance in these areas requires more robust test and evaluation (T&E) with technologies that are rapidly adaptable to changing threats. Readily available, IR seeking, man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS) are difficult to detect and pose an imminent and lethal threat to military aircraft of all types. Our ability to counter such threats is essential to owning the battlespace in theater. Therefore, the ability to test missile warning systems (MWS), hostile fire indicator (HFI) systems, IR countermeasures (IRCM), and advanced threat sensors is critical to our national defense. Additionally, a new generation of enemy RF missile seekers is both currently fielded and in further development, requiring a correspondingly new generation of test technologies to test the latest countermeasures. The T&E community is required to test IRCM and RF countermeasure systems in a repeatable manner with ground-truth data before and after integration into warfighting systems. Without new test technologies, the Department will be unable to perform adequate T&E of advanced warning and countermeasure systems. The Electronic Warfare Electronic attack and Electronic protect (EP) community is developing jammers and EP measures that are more sophisticated and take advantage of newer technology that allows adaptive waveforms and artificial intelligence and autonomy to respond to threats more rapidly and robustly. In addition, the testing of these systems in realistic many on many environments that are more threat representative requires new technology investment. The technology development efforts within the Electronic Warfare Test (EWT) project have been prioritized to align with the Department’s guidance on science and technology priority investments. As such, the EWT project is focusing on the test needs in both the EO, including IR, and the RF threat domains. Additionally, development of core test technologies in this area can be leveraged to meet other EO and RF test requirements, such as in fire control systems; intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) sensors, and weapon seekers.