DARPA extends EW contract work by BAE Systems

NASHUA, N.H., Nov. 4 (UPI) -- BAE Systems' work on a U.S. military project for adaptive radar countermeasures for airborne electronic warfare systems has been extended.

The extension for Phase 3 of the Adaptive Radar Countermeasures project was issued by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and is worth $13.3 million.

"The Phase 3 award from DARPA recognizes the progress our team delivered at the end of Phase 2," said Louis Trebaol, ARC program manager at BAE Systems. "In Phase 2, we successfully demonstrated the ability to characterize and adaptively counter advanced threats in a closed-loop test environment. We will now continue to mature the technology and test it against the most advanced radars in the U.S. inventory in order to successfully transition this important technology to the warfighter."

Under the contract modification, BAE Systems' work will include the planned completion of algorithm development, advanced readiness testing, and key milestones for transitioning the technologies to airborne platforms, such as fifth-generation fighter aircraft.

BAE Systems said current electronic warfare systems have limited ability to quickly adapt to new and advanced threats because they rely on a database of known threats with predefined countermeasures.

Using advanced signal processing, intelligent algorithms, and machine learning technique future EW systems will be able to isolate unknown hostile radar signals in dense electromagnetic environments, and then rapidly generate effective electronic countermeasures.

DARPA's contract modification brings the cumulative value of BAE Systems' overall ARC contract to $35.5 million.