Distributed EW Operations in the Modern Congested RF Environment




From 14-17 February 2017, the Collaboration Support Office hosted the first meeting of SCI-297 on “Distributed EW Operations in the Modern Congested RF Environment,” a Task Group that is looking at  future Electronic Warfare (EW) capabilities needed to dominate the electromagnetic spectrum.  This Task Group evolved from an Exploratory Team that first met in October 2016.  The Group has 18 members with representation from 10 nations. Their intention is to develop distributed Communications Electronic Warfare (CEW) capabilities to identify, geolocate and disrupt modern communications systems. This will ensure that NATO regains the ability to obtain situational awareness and deny adversary use of the Electromagnetic Environment.  This first meeting brought together experts to share the information on the latest technology developments (including 5G) and to plan further research and trial activities.

NATO needs improved Electronic Warfare (EW) capabilities to dominate the Electromagnetic Environment (EME). However, research in the commercial communications market is driving the technology forward at a rapid pace. Asymmetric adversaries can easily obtain advanced communications technology by simply buying smartphones. Symmetric adversaries can put this kind of technology in a ruggedised box, or extract key technologies. NATO is in an arms race where EW technology needs to maintain pace with commercial development. This is becoming increasingly difficult due to the introduction of increasingly complex signals (e.g. 4G/5G technology). With communications becoming more widespread and our adversaries making increasing use of Electronic Attack (EA), NATO EW equipment will need to operate in an increasingly congested and contested EME.

If headway in this race is not made, NATO operations involving EW for situational awareness, intelligence gathering, cueing of electronic attack or Cyber effects will be severely burdened. NATO needs to find ways to exploit this increasingly congested spectrum in order to acquire and maintain dominance in the EME. The most effective counter to this technical evolution will be the use of networked and distributed NATO EW hardware; single sensors/effectors alone are not up to the task. Distributed EW operations will involve improved cross-cueing, low and high quality sensors, as well as increased data sharing between EW hardware. The result will be high quality EW products enabled through effective signal: detection, classification, geolocation, disruption and denial.

The task group will bring experts from NATO Nations and Partners together to pool knowledge on EW, to:

  • Develop concepts to improve interception of complex future communications targets.
  • Develop distributed EW technologies to improve future NATO EW systems in an evolving, congested EME.
  • Validate & demonstrate techniques through joint field trials.
  • Provide an integration path for EW leading to compatibility across NATO.

The focus within the task group will initially be on two use cases:

  • MIMO systems (as in 5G); and
  • Making sense of a congested EME (e.g. overlapping and interleaved transmissions).

These objectives build on the results from previous NATO and national activities.

Published by SCI

21/02/2017