New systems are designed to provide greater protection and situational awareness in contested environments
BAE Systems has unveiled Shadow EW, a family of electronic warfare payloads specifically developed for small airborne platforms.
The systems are designed to provide situational awareness and self-protection capabilities, helping improve mission effectiveness in environments where communications, navigation systems and sensors face persistent threats.
Shadow EW is intended to support a broad range of missions, including threat awareness, targeting support, deception, survivability and the coordinated delivery of electronic warfare effects across multiple platforms.
Small systems are becoming increasingly important
The war in Ukraine has demonstrated the growing importance of rapidly produced drones and other small airborne platforms deployed in large numbers.
These systems can complement traditional military platforms while providing direct support to ground forces. The conflict has also shown that electronic warfare is constantly evolving as adversaries adapt their detection, jamming and protection techniques.
Under these conditions, the ability to deploy large numbers of relatively affordable platforms may become as important as the individual performance of each system.
Designed for rapid production and lower costs
Shadow EW has been developed to support large-scale production at a lower cost than traditional electronic warfare systems.
The family relies on commercial microchips capable of providing high levels of computing power. The use of commercially available components also helps simplify and improve supply-chain efficiency.
Development of the Shadow EW family began before a specific operational requirement had been issued. The company invested millions of dollars in the program, drawing on lessons from recent conflicts and on the need for the defense industry to deliver new capabilities more quickly.
The objective is to shorten the time between development and deployment while increasing the volume of equipment available to military users.
A different approach from fighter-specific systems
Shadow EW differs from the highly customized electronic warfare solutions developed for aircraft such as the F-22, F-15 and F-35.
Rather than using an architecture designed for a single platform and a narrowly defined set of requirements, the new family relies on commercial components and open standards. This approach is intended to enable faster adaptation and simplify integration across different airborne platforms.
Software updates can also be introduced incrementally to address emerging threats and rapid changes in the operational environment.
Open architecture supports easier integration
By using open standards, Shadow EW is designed to remain as platform-agnostic as possible.
Compatibility with open architectures can reduce the challenges involved in integrating electronic warfare systems into platforms developed by different manufacturers. The solutions can therefore be adapted more easily for drones, autonomous aircraft and other small airborne systems.
The new family reflects a broader shift in electronic warfare: away from expensive, complex systems developed for a limited number of platforms and toward modular, affordable equipment that can be produced and deployed at scale.
