The Battle For The Electromagnetic Spectrum

Raytheon’s ALQ-249 Next-Generation Jammer (NGJ) Increment 1 midband pod is to replace the ALQ-99 pods on U.S. Navy Boeing EA-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft beginning in 2021. The pod houses two AESAs with different transmitters and apertures for standoff jamming of integrated air defense systems. NGJ will integrate with the EA-18’s Northrop Grumman ASQ-218 receiver and Raytheon APG-73 AESA radar, which has a jamming mode. The F/A-18E/F Super Hornet has the same AESA, plus Raytheon ALR-67(V)3 RWR, Harris ALQ-214(V)4/5 onboard jammer and BAE ALE-55 fiber-optic towed decoy.

Saab’s JAS 39E/F Gripen, scheduled to enter service in 2019, will be equipped with its new Arexis EW system. This is an integrated RWR, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance and ECM concept based on ultrawideband digital receivers, DRFM devices, high-power gallium-nitride AESA jammer transmitters and interferometric direction-finding systems. Arexis includes an electronic attack pod aimed at jamming lower frequencies used by anti-stealth radars. The EW system will work with the Gripen E’s Leonardo Raven ES-05 AESA radar. Gripen can carry MBDA’s BriteCloud deployable DRFM jammer, dispensed from a flare cartridge.

Russia’s Sukhoi Su-57, scheduled to enter service in 2019, integrates radar and EW so they share some of the many apertures distributed around the stealthy airframe. Developed by the Knirti research institute, the L402 Himalayas ECM system has its own arrays, one in a large sting between the engines, and uses the L-band arrays in the wing leading-edge extensions that are part of the N036 Byelka AESA radar system. In addition to these apertures, the N036, developed by the Tikhomirov NIIP institute, has the main X-band AESA in the nose and two small side-looking, X-band arrays on the forward fuselage.