The Navy plans to test its new electronic warfare drones this fall

Complex electronic warfare (EW) platforms - such as the U.S. Navy’s EA-18G Growler - could soon release swarms of drones from the aircraft, allowing the smaller vehicles to fly ahead to scout out for radar and other battlefield emitters, and potentially even take part in electronic attack missions themselves by jamming enemy sensor networks.

The concept is part of a project the U.S. Navy is working on with Northrop Grumman known as Remedy.

As part of the program, a small Class II unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) - developed by North Carolina-based VX Aerospace – would be packed into a cluster munition canister that would then eject from a “mothership” and fly a programmed route ahead of stand-off jammers and strike aircraft.

The small drones - outfitted with various payloads including electronic support measures (ESM) or electronic attack jammers - would integrate a datalink to send information back to manned aircraft for either immediate tactical use or intelligence planning for later missions. The small UAVs, which are difficult to detect, owing to their size and slow speed, would get “up close and personal” to radar systems allowing them to perform novel jamming techniques, and even infiltrate command networks to perform cyberattacks.

“It gives me more ‘attack surfaces’ to get at the enemy radar,” said John Thompson, Northrop Grumman’s director of business development for airborne C4ISR. “And because I'm so close, I can now hear more details or hear signals that previously vehicles that were further away couldn't receive simply because of the physics.”