Army chooses Sotera to provide EW planner to jam enemy RF, safeguard friendly systems
ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md., 3 July 2013. U.S. Army electronic warfare (EW) experts needed planning software to enable warfighters to jam enemy communications, remotely controlled explosives, radar systems, and other RF assets while safeguarding U.S. and allied RF systems. They found their solution from Sotera Defense Solutions Inc. in Herndon, Va.
Officials of the Army Contracting Command at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., announced a potential $97.6 million contract to Sotera Tuesday to design and build the Electronic Warfare Planning and Management Tool (EWPMT) to help commanders plan, coordinate, and synchronize EW during battlefield operations.
The EWPMT is to be Web-based software that will function the planning and management component of the Army's Integrated Electronic Warfare System (IEWS) family of systems (FoS). It will integrate EW battlefield information and management, and provide a tailorable, user defined display of the electromagnetic operational environment from battalion to theater level, Army officials say.
The Integrated Electronic Warfare System is to be a family of technologies to enable U.S. and allied forces to attack and disrupt the enemy's command, control, and communications capabilities, while enabling the ability of friendly forces to use the RF spectrum freely.
The IEWS and its EWPMT planning component are expected to enable U.S. forces to jam anything from low-end cell phones and proximity-fused munitions to multimillion radar systems and aerial drone uplinks. The goal is to enable maneuver commanders to operate freely in the electromagnetic spectrum, while denying adversaries the use of it, Army officials say.
The EW Planning & Management Tools also are intended to help prevent jammers from knocking out friendly communications and other sorts of signal fratricide. The system's software will be designed to help Army electronic warfare experts de-conflict offensive, defensive, and friendly signals.
The software essentially is to mesh intelligence and terrain data to provide a common operational picture for the electromagnetic spectrum. Electronic warfare officers will use it to perform pre-mission planning, identify likely threats, advise commanders, and predict which electronic warfare systems would be most effective.
The worldwide proliferation of RF communications technologies will continue to complicate an already congested and contested electromagnetic spectrum, Army officials explain.
The EWPMT will access tactical, operational, and strategic EW information, and send, receive, store, display, and develop electromagnetic situational awareness of friendly, enemy, neutral, and unknown RF activity.
EWPMT will synchronize fielded and emerging EW capabilities to provide the commander a picture of the electromagnetic environment and illustrate the effects of EW systems. Eventually the system will be able to reprogram electronic attack and electronic warfare support equipment dynamically; provide near-real time spectrum de-confliction; improved visualization; and asset control.
Army officials say the EWPMT will reach full operational capability no later than 2019, when it will provide commanders at echelons from battalion to theater Army an integrated capability that is designed to ensure freedom of maneuver throughout the EMS.
The EWPMT is expected to operate on the local area network (LAN) as a virtual machine on mission command common services server stack, requiring no separate hardware, Army officials say.
For more information contact Sotera Defense Solutions online at www.soteradefense.com, or the Army Contracting Command at Aberdeen Proving Ground at www.acc.army.mil/contractingcenters/acc-apg.
