Raytheon Proposes Next-Generation Jammer for Ground- and Ship-Based Defense

By Richard R. Burgess, Senior Editor

ARLINGTON, Va. — Raytheon is demonstrating its Next-Generation Jammer Mid-Band (NGJ-MB) electronic attack arrays for ground-based or shipboard use, particularly in a counter-UAS (unmanned aerial system) role.

The NGJ-MB currently serves in the airborne electronic attack role on the Navy’s EA-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft. Raytheon is looking at expanding its use in other domains. One reason is to use non-kinetic solutions to save on ammunition.

“What we’re finding with high munitions usage, a lot of our customers are looking for non-kinetic options in products and capabilities to solve their problems,” said Camille Wilson, vice president for Requirements and Capabilities for the Raytheon Naval Power sector.

“From a defense perspective, we need a number of different solutions,” Wilson said.

She said that the NGJ-MB array itself can be used for such applications.

“We’ve explored one array up to two, three, four arrays depending on what effect you need, what electric power out you need,” Wilson said. “With one array I could do a myriad of different things. I could use it on a vehicle. I could use a smaller system. If I wanted more capability and more power out or coverage, I could add more arrays. The interesting thing about the land-based variation that we’re looking at is I don’t have the same power and cooling constraints as I do on the airborne side, so there’s a lot more that we could do with it. There are a lot more configurations that we could use those arrays for.”

Wilson was not at liberty to discuss “the full complement of capabilities for a ground-or-ship-based NGJ array, but what a lot of our customers are asking for is counter-UAS.”

She noted that software changes on the NGJ-MB would be required for the counter-UAS role, but that “taking something that is in production, TRL-9 [Technology Readiness Level 9], that we know works, can we make a few software tweaks and optimize for a different mission set?”

She said that in the counter-UAS role, the NGJ-MB could be used to jam or decoy drones.

Raytheon has a demonstration system and is actively demonstrating the ground-based electronic attack capability, Wilson said. “We have multiple U.S. Government and departments and entities [with which] we’re discussing options for deployment.