Spectrum warfare system seeks to use light, RF and microwave energy for sensors and electronic warfare (EW)
ARLINGTON, Va. – U.S. Navy researchers needed an experimental deployable system able to help U.S. military forces manage and protect their use of RF, microwave, and light energy. They found their solution from Systems Engineering Associates Corp. (SEACORP), a KAPCO Defense company in Middletown, R.I.
Officials of the Office of Naval Research (ONR) in Arlington, Va., announced a $24.5 million contract to SEACORP last month to develop the Electromagnetic Maneuver Warfare Modular Suite (EMWMS).
The EMWMS spectrum warfare system will be a mobile configurable system designed to help Navy, U.S. Marine Corps., and other U.S. and allied military forces ensure their use of the electromagnetic spectrum for command, control, communications, and intelligence uses, and help deny its use to the enemy.
Electromagnetic maneuver warfare describes the ways the Navy and other military forces take advantage of RF and microwave and light energy for wireless communications, sensors, situational awareness, and reconnaissance, and help jam enemy uses of electromagnetic energy.
Related: RF and microwave designers grapple with crowded spectrum
The EMWMS will take advanced of advanced sensors, digital signal processing, and other kinds of advanced computing technologies and software to monitor the nearby electromagnetic spectrum, as well as to jam or spoof enemy communications, sensors, and surveillance systems.
The EMWMS is for long-term use in one location, or for roll-on/roll-off deployable missions aboard manned and unmanned aircraft, land vehicles, surface ships, and submarines.
The system will be built into a container, express (CONEX) box that will facilitate future scalability, modularity, reliability, maintainability, and security, Navy researchers say.
The CONEX box design also will address space, weight, and power requirements to support intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities, and to deny those capabilities to the enemy.
On this contract, SEACORP will do the work in Middletown and Narragansett, R.I.; Norfolk and McLean, Va.; and Rochester, N.Y., and should be finished by May 2023. The contract has options that could extend work until September 2027, and the contract's value to $79 million.
For more information contact SEACORP online at www.seacorp.com, or the Office of Naval Research at www.nre.navy.mil.
John Keller | Editor-in-Chief
John Keller is the Editor-in-Chief, Military & Aerospace Electronics Magazine--provides extensive coverage and analysis of enabling electronics and optoelectronic technologies in military, space and commercial aviation applications. John has been a member of the Military & Aerospace Electronics staff since 1989 and chief editor since 1995.
