AN/ALQ-249(V)3 Next Generation Jammer High Band

Next Generation Jammer (NGJ), an external jamming pod, is an evolutionary acquisition program providing capability in three increments: Mid-Band [2GHz to 6GHz], Low Band [100MHz to 2GHz] and High Band [6GHz to 18GHz]. Next Generation Jammer High Band capability commenced early requirements development activities in 2021. Next Generation Jammer High Band is planneed to be operational sround 2026-2028 with focus on 6 GHz to 18 GHz waveband. The beauty of the NGJ system at play. Stand-Off mission requires distinct jammers with adequate power to handle threats at stand-off range and multiple threats at a time. Quite a contrast to the multi-role/frequency systems that attempt to jam a much wider radar frequency range and are really optimized for self protection or escort and not all-aspect stand off SEAD and DEAD like the NGJ system is.

The US Armed Forces obtained a Russian Pantsir-S1E air defense system from the militarized formations of the Government of National Accord (PNC) of Libya with relocation from the US Air Force Ramstein AFB (FRG) to the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (Ohio). Analysis of the radio-electronic architecture of the Pantsir-S1E air defense missile system by American experts will require partial processing of the element base and software of the weapons control systems of the modernized Pantsir-S1M / 2 air defense missile systems. The choice of the Wright-Patterson airbase as the final delivery point for the trophy Pantsir-C1 is not accidental, because this object belongs to the AFRL (Air Force Research Laboratory).

Not only specialists from the US Air Force Research Laboratory AFRL will take direct part in the analysis of the parameters (and possibly field tests with the reflection of a conventional massive missile-air strike) of the electronic filling of the "trophy" "Pantsir-C1" but also competent representatives of the Raytheon Space and Air Systems division of the military-industrial corporation Raytheon, as well as the military-industrial giant Lockheed Martin. Their main task will be to evaluate the effectiveness of the 10ES1-E multispectral optoelectronic guidance system and the 1PC2-1E "Helmet" PFAR guidance radar in detecting, tracking and "capturing" promising high-precision weapons developed by these corporations in a difficult jamming environment.

In particular, despite the impossibility of a full-fledged withdrawal of the source code of the Pantsir-S1E weapons control system, specialists from the AFRL laboratory, as well as from the military-industrial corporations "Raytheon", will still be able to gain access to a number of critical tactical and technical parameters of the 96K6E air defense missile system, which have the maximum with the parameters of the standard modification "Pantsir-C1" intended for the Russian Aerospace Forces.

First of all, we are talking about obtaining data on the level of noise immunity of the receiving paths of the centimeter radar detector based on the PFAR 1PC1-E (operates in the X-band), as well as the millimeter-centimeter radar for target tracking and guidance of the 1PC2-1E "Helmet" missile defense system (functioning in the X / Ku-bands) under conditions of interference from the promising container complex electronic warfare AN/ALQ-249(V)3 NGJ-HB ("Next Generation Jammer - High Band") Increment 3, operating in the frequency range from 6 to 18 GHz (G, H, X and J-bands of centimeter waves) and capable of forming a powerful and narrow (about 0.5 - 1 degree) interference beam due to the presence of AFAR emitters based on gallium nitride microwave transistors.

Determination of this parameter will become possible both in the course of field tests of the AN/ALQ-249 NGJ-HB Increment 3 complex against the Pantsir-S1E radar modules, when AFRL specialists, acting as a combat crew of the "captured" "Air targets against the background of radiation from the AN / ALQ-246 side (by the method of target marker selection against the background of interference background), and in the course of software and hardware determination of the bit width of the phase shifters of the Shlem radar transmit-receive modules, the level of its side lobes, the average and peak power of the microwave generator (magnetron or klystron) feeding the transmitting array of transmitting and receiving modules. As you know, in radar technology, the increase in the level of the side lobes of the antenna sheet of the PFAR / AFAR radar is directly proportional to the decrease in its noise immunity,

Raytheon corporation will be able, firstly, to simulate and load into the on-board computer of the NGJ-HB electronic warfare systems supplied to the combat units of the US Air Force, an individual counteraction mode for the Pantsirei-C1 radar guidance subsystem with flexibly simulated amplitude-frequency parameters, secondly, to fix in advance the maximum permissible EPR for the currently developed advanced aerospace attack vehicles (OTBR and their supersonic / hypersonic gliding warheads, anti-radar and anti-ship missiles, as well as multipurpose tactical missiles and guided missiles).