Electronic warfare's next step: Army, Marine Corps test UAVs, drones as jamming tools

摘要

The Army is making no promises to buy unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) configured for electronic attack. Nevertheless, the service tested the Networked Electronic Warfare, Remotely Operated (NERO) pod on the MQ-1C Gray Eagle in March. Likewise, the Marine Corps has been assessing a jammer integrated with the Bat, a tactical drone developed by Northrop Grumman. TEAL Group analyst Dave Rockwell cautions against reading too much into these electronic warfare (EW) demonstrations. After all, the idea has been around for almost a decade, but Rockwell said he sees steady and increasing funding for research, development, testing and evaluation programs.