Electronic warfare (EW) is a rapidly evolving field that is steadily increasing in prominence as nations look to gain the edge in the next generation of conflict technology.
Electronic warfare is a broad category of technical capabilities focused on the strategic use of the electromagnetic spectrum against an enemy in a military conflict.
One of the most common practiced types of electronic warfare is jamming. Jamming falls under the category of electronic countermeasures (ECM). The purpose of jamming is to limit the enemy’s ability to exchange information by overriding radio transmissions or by sending signals to prevent radar detection or convey false information.
The two main technique styles are noise techniques and repeater techniques. There are three types of noise jamming:
- Spot jamming: This is when a jammer focuses all of its power on a single frequency. While this would severely degrade the ability to track on the jammed frequency, a frequency-agile radar would hardly be affected because the jammer can only jam one frequency. While multiple jammers could possibly jam a range of frequencies, this would consume a great deal of resources to have any effect on a frequency-agile radar, and would probably still be ineffective.
- Sweep jamming: This happens when a jammer’s full power is shifted from one frequency to another. While this has the advantage of being able to jam multiple frequencies in quick succession, it does not affect them all at the same time, and thus limits the effectiveness of this type of jamming. Although, depending on the error checking in the device(s) this can render a wide range of devices effectively useless.
- Barragejamming: The jamming of multiple frequencies at once by a single jammer. The advantage is that multiple frequencies can be jammed simultaneously; however, the jamming effect can be limited because this requires the jammer to spread its full power between these frequencies, as the number of frequencies covered increases the less effectively each is jammed.
Repeater jamming is a repeater technique that manipulates received radar energy and retransmits it to change the return the radar sees. This technique can change the range the radar detects by changing the delay in transmission of pulses, the velocity the radar detects by changing the Doppler shift of the transmitted signal, or the angle to the plane by using AM techniques to transmit into the side lobes of the radar.
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Introduction to Electronic Warfare provides the foundation for understanding the basic concepts underlying electronic warfare (EW). This course uses a practical building-block approach to facilitate student comprehension of the essential subject matter associated with the combat applications of EW.
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