The United States Army’s 11th Airborne Division has conducted an electromagnetic warfare (EW) and counter-uncrewed aerial system (C-UAS) training event at the Joint Pacific Alaskan Range Complex (JPARC) near Fort Greely, Alaska, bringing together EW specialist soldiers with UAS and C-UAS vendors to experiment with technologies in Alaska’s Arctic environment.
The training event, conducted in partnership with the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), provided soldiers with the opportunity to integrate EW systems with C-UAS technologies, refine tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) and practice their ability to detect and counter enemy UAS threats in a contested electromagnetic spectrum (EMS).
“This [training] was a rare opportunity for our EW teams to work together and see firsthand how UAS systems operate in extreme cold weather,” said 1st Lieutenant Gunnar Moffitt, an EW Platoon Leader, 2nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 11th Airborne Division. “We were able to detect Radio Frequency (RF) signatures, locate UAS command-and-control links, and assess how our systems perform in freezing temperatures and deep snow.”
Key highlights focused on detecting and analysing the EMS signatures of various UAS platforms, including their command-and-control links. Soldiers used their organic EW systems to identify and locate enemy UAS operators and assess the effectiveness of their equipment in Arctic conditions.
The JPARC experiences extreme cold weather conditions, with temperatures routinely below freezing and receiving significant snowfall, providing a realistic environment for testing the durability and effectiveness of EW, C-UAS and UAS systems. Soldiers observed impacts to system battery life due to cold temperatures, gaining valuable insight into how these systems perform in Arctic environments.
The US Army said that the data collected during the training will inform future improvements to EW and C-UAS capabilities.
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Image provided by US Indo-Pacific Command
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