Lockheed Martin graphic

Lockheed Martin’s Silent Crow cyber/electronic warfare pod on an Army MQ-1C Grey Eagle drone. Silent Crow is the basis for MFEW-Air-Large (Lockheed illustration)

WASHINGTON: Already struggling with funding issues, the US Army’s Multi-Function Electronic Warfare-Air Large program needs to coordinate with the service’s unmanned aerial systems community to ensure proper tactics, techniques, and procedures are prepared for future operational tests, according to the Pentagon’s independent weapons assessor.

The annual report published late last month by the Pentagon’s Director of Operational Test and Evaluation said that the MFEW-AL program’s lack of maturity made it impossible for the testers to evaluate the operational effectiveness, suitability and survivability of the 300lb. jamming pod so far. The pod is supposed to be mounted on the MQ-1C Gray Eagle drone.

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The DOT&E report said that “inconsistent funding” had delayed developmental and integrated testing on MC-1C Gray Eagle, ultimately limiting operational testing. Procurement funding for the MFEW-AL program was zeroed out in the fiscal 2022 budget. According to a report from C4ISRNET, Army leaders have said that once the pod completes developmental testing, it can compete for procurement funding.

In a webinar, hosted by AFCEA Northern Virginia last month, Col. Daniel Holland, capability manager for electronic warfare, provided an update on the MFEW program.

“We have proposed a course of action for consideration to Army senior leaders to add a limited amount of procurement back to the line — that’s pending,” Holland said.

Right now, the program office is updating the Capability Development Document to “tighten up some key performance parameters for multi-domain operations against near-peer threats,” he added.

During the webinar, Holland also provided an update on several other electronic attack systems the service is developing after years of neglect. The service is developing a series of capabilities that will integrate onto drones, high-altitude balloons and Strykers in an effort to compete with peer adversaries.

The service is also developing a system called the Terrestrial Layer System-Echelons Above Brigade, which will provide long-range EW and signals intelligence capabilities, as well as a short-range defensive EW ability to defend higher headquarters.

The TLS-EAB system will carry EW capabilities on heavy trucks and is a larger system than the TLS-Brigade Combat Team that integrated EW tools onto a Stryker. That program is new start for FY22 that is supposed to field to Multi-Domain Task Force units in FY23. In the FY22 budget request, the service requested for $19.5 million for the program.

Holland said that his program office is working to “supplement” the requirements in a recently approved abbreviated capabilities document. His office is working on an “updated concept of operations that provides some additional detail about our desired character characteristics and expected operational performance of the TLS-EAB system.”

Among other programs the service is pursuing, the colonel said, is a capability called the Spectrum Situational Awareness System, or S2AS, which is meant to provide leaders in a command post to monitor their electronic signature, a valuable tool for evading enemy EW tools.

“We are trying to enable commanders to see themselves [and] understand what their blue RF [radio frequency] footprint is in the electromagnetic spectrum so that they can make decisions,” Holland said. “For example, emissions control, or EmCon decisions, in terms of the power, whether they’re radiating or not radiating, in order to prevent adversary SIGINT and ew systems from finding them and targeting them, particularly the command post.”

The service is also creating an abbreviated capabilities development document for a program called the Modular EMS Systems to help obfuscate electronic signature emanating from Army positions.

“The idea is create multiple targeting dilemmas for adversary SIGINT and EW systems [and] lengthen the amount of time it takes a threat sensor to find a command post and then target the command post,” Holland said.

Far above ground, Holland said the service is building a new high-altitude, navigational warfare system in coordination with the Army’s Space and Missile Defense Command and the Assured Position, Navigation and Timing Cross-Functional Team to add to SMDC’s High Altitude program.

Lastly, Holland’s team is working on small-Unmanned Aerial System EW capability that will “likely” be part of the Air-Launched Effects abbreviated capabilities development document.