Electronic warfare (EW) encompasses all strategies and technologies used to exploit the electromagnetic spectrum, including radio waves, microwaves, infrared, visible light, ultraviolet light and X-rays. The spectrum is an integral part of various military operations and serves as the backbone for communication, navigation and targeting. Electronic warfare aims to deny the enemy the use of the spectrum while ensuring that friendly forces can operate freely within it. Today, the electromagnetic spectrum has become as critical a battlefield as the land, naval, air or space domains. Electronic warfare represents the clash of invisible forces that can determine the outcome of conflicts even before the first physical shot is fired. Since its massive application in World War II with radio warfare and the use of radar, electronic warfare has evolved to become a crucial part of achieving superiority in the confrontation in modern conflicts. For this, it is sufficient to point out the relevant role that electronic warfare plays in the doctrine of the main military forces. While NATO, China and Russia recognize the importance of electronic warfare, their doctrines diverge significantly due to differences in strategic objectives, geopolitical contexts and operational priorities. NATO focuses on collective defense and interoperability; China prioritizes information dominance and integrated networked warfare; and Russia emphasizes strategic flexibility and hybrid warfare integration. Currently, Ukraine and Russia are conducting a cat-and-mouse game to interfere with each other’s systems to an unprecedented level. Ukraine has focused on the use of electronic warfare in support of its air defenses to deal with Russian drones and missiles. Russia, for its part, has focused on jamming signals from global positioning system satellites used by Ukraine for air and artillery munitions guidance. The latest recent example of the successful use of electronic warfare techniques can be found in the ongoing offensive launched by Ukraine in Russia’s Kursk region. Both Russia and Ukraine have been using drones of all types extensively for reconnaissance and attack missions. The innovation introduced by Ukraine has been to combine attack drones with electronic warfare units to jam the signals of Russian drones, blinding them. This has enabled Ukrainian drones to attack targets and allow ground units to advance. Once the first advance of ground units of a few kilometers has been completed, the process (use of drones plus jamming) has been repeated at high speed, allowing the Ukrainian forces to advance relatively intact, leaving the Russian commanders with very little information on Ukrainian movements.
This innovation, combined with the extensive use of small, highly mobile special operations units, which have been able to penetrate behind Russian lines and sow maximum chaos, has contributed to create confusion in the Russian high command, forcing a misuse of local units, resulting in their massive surrender or destruction. Without the intention of being exhaustive, and with an informative and non-technical purpose, the main elements that make up electronic warfare will be described below.
Fundamentals of Electronic Warfare
Electronic warfare resides in the dominance of the entire electromagnetic spectrum, from the lowest band of tactical communications systems to the highest bands of radar and satellite communications systems. It is generally accepted that electronic warfare revolves around three distinct axes, working in concert for effective control of the electromagnetic spectrum, ensuring that one’s forces can communicate and operate effectively while denying or degrading the same capability to the enemy. Each of these categories has its own techniques, tools and methodologies, all of which are fundamental to today’s multi-domain operations:
- Electronic Attack (EA – Electronic Attack) or Electronic Counter Measures (ECM – Electronic Counter Measures): Consists of the use of electromagnetic energy, directed energy or anti-radiation weapons to attack personnel, facilities, equipment or weapon systems with the intent to degrade, neutralize or destroy the enemy’s combat capability.
- Electronic Protection (EP – Electronic Protection) or Electronic Counter Counter Measures (ECCM – Electronic Counter Measures): Actions taken to protect personnel, facilities, equipment or weapon systems from any effect of own or enemy use of the electromagnetic spectrum that degrades, neutralizes or destroys own combat capability.
- Electronic Support (ES) or Electronic Support Measures (ESM): Actions taken to search for, intercept, identify or locate sources of intentionally or unintentionally radiated electromagnetic energy for the purpose of immediate threat recognition, targeting, planning and execution of future operations.
Electronic Attack (EA) / Electronic Countermeasures (ECM)
It is the set of techniques used to deceive, confuse or disable enemy electronic systems. EA/ECM techniques can be classified into several types, depending on their purpose and method of implementation. The most common techniques in each category are described below.
- Electronic Attack Techniques: Electronic attack techniques seek to disrupt, deceive, or destroy the enemy’s electronic systems. These attacks can be both offensive and defensive and can have various objectives, such as jamming communications or neutralizing radar systems.
- Electronic Jamming: Consists of emitting radio frequency signals to saturate enemy receivers and hinder or prevent their ability to receive or transmit information (communications, radar or navigation systems).
- Spoofing: Consists of sending false signals to the enemy to confuse or deceive their electronic systems.
- Hardware Destruction: Involves the physical destruction of the enemy’s electronic components through the use of directed energy weapons or electromagnetic pulses.
- Electronic Deception: Used to manipulate the enemy’s perceptions of the tactical situation by manipulating signals or falsifying information.
- Electronic Countermeasure Techniques: These are defensive techniques that seek to protect their own electronic systems from enemy attacks.
- Jamming resistance: Focuses on maintaining the functionality of communication and radar systems even under jamming conditions.
- Detection and localization of jammers: It is crucial to identify and neutralize sources of interference through spectrum analysis and source location.
- Encryption and Communications Security: Protect transmitted information against interception and spoofing.
- Controlled Signal Emission: A technique that seeks to minimize the electromagnetic signature of its own systems to avoid detection and interference by the enemy.
- Active Countermeasures: Involve the use of systems that can respond directly to electronic warfare threats, either by eliminating or blocking enemy signals.
Electronic Protection (EP) / Electronic Counter Countermeasures (ECCM)
These are electronic warfare techniques that through a variety of practices attempt to reduce or eliminate the effect of enemy ECM on electronic sensors specific to ground, naval and airborne platforms and missiles. There are several common EP/ECCM techniques. Here are a few examples:
- Increasing radio transmission power: This is the most basic technique. It involves increasing the power of radio transmissions to “burn” the enemy’s jamming attempt.
- Radiation detection and ECM detection weapons: Consists of the use of sensors that can recognize enemy attempts to deceive radars and ignore them. This is the case of anti-radiation missiles (ARM – anti-radiation missile), which can detect and target radio emissions with their own sensors and even redirect to the source of the enemy jamming signal if the jamming makes it impossible to reach their original target.
- Use of low observability technology: Consists of altering the reflection of a ground, naval or airborne platform by applying a radar absorbing layer to weaken the return signal, making it difficult for enemy radar to detect.
- Advanced software: Consists of the use of advanced software that can better discriminate between real targets and decoys.
Electronic Support Measures (ES) – Electronic Support Measures (ESM)
ES/ESM techniques can be classified according to their functionality and application, the main one being Signals Intelligence (SIGINT), which is a form of information gathering that is performed by intercepting signals. Here are some key points:
- Interception of communications: SIGINT comprises the interception of direct communications between individuals (telephone conversations, text messages, radio calls and signaling channels), known asCommunications Intelligence (COMINT), or the interception of electronic broadcasts of various non-communications media, known as ElectronicIntelligence (ELINT).
- Information analysis: SIGINT teams analyze intercepted communications to learn more about the adversary or enemy, as well as self-protect their own communications to prevent them from being monitored, analyzed and tapped.
- Use in research and espionage: SIGINT techniques are commonly used to learn information about certain targets such as secret information present in the communications of another country, its intelligence services, its critical infrastructures or other entities of interest.
Future of electronic warfare
As technology continues to advance at a rapid pace, military forces face a variety of challenges in the electronic warfare arena. Spectrum congestion, cybersecurity vulnerabilities and the development of countermeasures by adversaries pose ongoing obstacles. Looking ahead, the field of electronic warfare holds immense potential. Advances in spectrum dominance, integration with artificial intelligence and machine learning, offensive cyber activities, directed energy weapons, quantum and photonic technologies, and space capabilities will shape the evolution of electronic warfare. Looking ahead, the integration between electronic warfare and cyber actions will be even greater in detecting and responding to external threats. One of the consequences of this integration is the difficulty in the future of ensuring the security and integrity of public services on which the civilian population depends. We briefly discuss below the application of disruptive and differentiating technologies such as photonics and quantum to the future development of electronic warfare.
The advantages of using photonics technology in electronic warfare systems
Photonic technology has great potential in this field, from transmitting microwave signals through optical fibers to measuring the frequency of signals in real time and processing multiple signal channels simultaneously. Photonic RF is one of the enabling technologies for the new generation of electronic warfare systems in radar and communications applications, both in ES/ESM and EA/ECM measurements. The main advantages of electronic warfare systems based on photonic technology over traditional RF-based ones are as follows:
- Huge instantaneous bandwidth (no sweep) with the ability to instantly process very large bandwidths (> 40 GHz) and with very small size, weight and power envelopes (SWaP). This makes it possible to cope with low probability of intercept (LPI) radars operating with high frequency agility and complex waveforms.
- Ultra-fast processing with very low latency (< 10 ns), by replacing electrons with photons.
- More effective electronic attack, with high capability to cope with adversary ECCM (high frequency agility) and generate high fidelity signals to deceive radar.
- Reduction of RF chains with equipment (LRU – Line Replaceable Unit) of reduced form factor and low power consumption (SWaP), maximizing the power per Gz beyond the RF limits.
- Free of electromagnetic interference, due to the nature of light and its lack of interaction with electric and magnetic fields.
- Low cost compared to RF-based systems, due to their energy efficiency, lower maintenance requirements, higher data transmission capacity and lower environmental impact.
- Technology available in very few countries, as only the US, China, Russia, France, UK and Israel have operational electronic warfare systems based on photonics technology.
This set of advantages makes photonics technology an attractive option for electronic warfare applications. In addition, photonics technology enables the development of solutions for both fiber optic interconnection within ground, naval and airborne platforms, as well as satellites, and for the design and manufacture of transponders, increasing processing capacity by a factor of 10 without increasing weight, size or power consumption.
Quantum technology has great potential to revolutionize electronic warfare
Quantum technology can revolutionize electronic warfare substantially, but its practical application is still in the development and testing stages in many cases. Widespread and effective implementation of these technologies in real operational environments still requires overcoming several technical and infrastructural challenges. The following are the main areas where quantum technology can have a significant impact:
- Quantum computers: They take advantage of the properties of quantum particles to perform complex calculations at much faster speeds than classical computers, which can allow, for example, very fast decoding of encrypted or complex signals used by the enemy, as well as the optimization of electronic warfare operations.
- Quantum sensors: Use the properties of quantum particles, such as superposition and entanglement, to make more precise measurements than conventional sensors, achieving more accurate detections, longer range and operation in highly congested environments, as well as the development of advanced ECCM.
- Quantum communication: Uses phenomena such as quantum entanglement to transmit information securely and efficiently through secure communication links, since any interception attempt would alter the quantum state of the signal, alerting users.
- Quantum cryptography: Uses quantum principles to create encryption methods that ensure that military communications cannot be intercepted or decrypted by the enemy, protecting critical data and strategic information. In addition, quantum cryptography will be crucial for protection against potential quantum attacks. Quantum encryption systems have been tested and are beginning to be deployed in defense environments.
- Quantum Radar: Uses quantum properties to detect objects more accurately and at greater distances, enabling early detection of threats and stealth targets, and non-linear detection of hidden vehicles or enemies using camouflage.
Oesia Group as guarantor of national sovereignty in electronic warfare
From Grupo Oesía we have the purpose of helping to create a better, more efficient, safe and sustainable world for future generations. A key element within this mission is to increase national sovereignty, contributing to the strategic autonomy of Europe, allowing us to face challenges as important as electronic warfare. To this end, we are contributing with developments based on photonics and quantum technology. Currently, the development of Electronic Warfare Systems is being carried out both in radar band and in communications band based on photonic processing, whose advantages have been described above and which provides a much higher signal detection capacity. Tecnobit-Grupo Oesía is working on the GEFOT project of the Ministry of Defense, which includes the supply, installation and testing of an ELINT/COMINT system based on photonic technology for the Spanish Army. This project will be the seed for the development of a new tactical system for ground electronic warfare. Likewise, Tecnobit-Oesia Group has participated in the European project SIGNAL for the development of an electronic warfare suite (SIGINT) on board UAS. On the other hand, our capabilities in cybersecurity and encryption and encryption capabilities help protect the integrity of systems and communications. Our solutions are certified by the National Cryptologic Center (CCN) and NATO and incorporate state-of-the-art elements such as quantum cryptography.
Salvador Álvarez, Strategy Director of Oesía Group