EW Academy · Contents · Chapter 16 · Nederlandse versie
Chapter 16: New concepts in EW
Two modern pillars of today's EW: cognitive & adaptive EW (learning and adapting in real time, beyond the fixed threat library) and spread spectrum (processing gain, FHSS, DSSS, LPI/LPD) as the technical basis for jam-resistant and intercept-resistant links.
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16.1The limits of the threat library
Classic EW relies on a threat library (or mission data file): a pre-programmed list of known threats with their characteristics and the matching countermeasure. An ESM system ( EW: Electronic Support Measures ) picks up a signal, looks it…
Read §16.1 →16.2Cognitive & adaptive EW: the cognitive loop
Cognitive EW replaces the fixed library with systems that sense, learn, decide and act in real time. The loop resembles the OODA loop:
Read §16.2 →16.3Cognitive radar: the opponent learns too
There are two sides to the coin. Cognitive radar adapts its own waveform in real time to the environment and to observed jamming — it changes frequency, pulse shape or search pattern as soon as it notices that it is being jammed. The…
Read §16.3 →16.4Spread spectrum: the idea of processing gain
The second modern concept protects your own links. How do you make a signal resistant to jamming and hard to intercept? By spreading it out far wider than the information actually needs. This is the technical core of modern electronic…
Read §16.4 →16.5FHSS and DSSS
Transmitter and receiver jump together between many frequencies according to a secret pattern. A jammer on a single frequency only hits a jump now and then.
Read §16.5 →16.6Limits and connections
Processing gain is finite . With enough wideband jamming power, or with a clever follower jammer that tracks the hops, a spread-spectrum link can still be disrupted. In practice it is therefore combined with coding , antenna nulling…
Read §16.6 →