Electronic Warfare: CTDs address critical EW capability needs | ADM May 08

1 May 2008

There's very little disagreement among Australian practitioners that Electronic Warfare (EW) should be classified as a Priority Local Industry Capability (PLIC).

The capability issues addressed by some of the EW-related Capability & Technology Demonstrator (CTDs) would seem to support this view.

By Gregor Ferguson, Sydney

Defence's CTD program is into its 12th year and running at twice the level of expenditure of three years ago.

While the CTD program covers a wide range of capability needs, there is a clutch of EW-related projects currently under way which have the potential to deliver real, significant benefits to Australian war fighters.

The CTD program underwent a number of changes for Round 9, in 2005, when the Federal government decided to double the amount of money then being spent on the CTD program, from $13 to $26 million a year, and bringing it under the exclusive control of DSTO.

Previously, DSTO administered the program, carried out the solicitation and contracting processes and then left it to the DMO to run the projects.

However, DMO, DSTO and the Capability Development Group (CDG) agreed that the CTDs are a technology development rather than an acquisition program - CTD projects are smaller than most Minor Capital Equipment projects - so the decision was made to bring them completely under DSTO's roof.

As a result, the Director of the program, Andrew Arnold, has seen his staff expand from one to half a dozen; at the time of writing they were busy with the contracting process for successful contenders in Round 11, with the selection process for Round 12 just completed.

A ministerial submission for this latest round was ready to go to the Minister, with a formal announcement due some time in early or mid-April.

CTDs are designed to tackle identified or potential ADF capability gaps or vulnerabilities.

The Millimetre Wave Digital Receiver CTD contract, worth $2.2 million, was signed in January this year with Tenix Defence's Electronic Systems Division.

This will see the company design and demonstrate an Open Architecture (OA) millimetre wave digital receiver that's able to tackle emerging maritime threats - in particular, a new generation of anti-ship missile seeker heads.

There's nothing particularly new about such a receiver, but under this CTD project Tenix will employ a range of photonic components and techniques, some of developed by DSTO under an earlier classified CTD, SIDEARM.

The photonic elements in the receiver will allow higher processing bandwidth - for both series and parallel processing - as well as reduced power losses in cable runs between the antenna and receiver and a lighter, more compact installation.

Timelines
The company will demonstrate the receiver during the final quarter of 2009, with the project due to wrap up in December of that year.

The demonstration will take place under controlled conditions on a land-based site, rather than at sea: according to Arnold, the CTD program aims not to employ operational ADF assets or CTD demonstrations as these are in short supply owing to the ADF's high operational tempo and availability can't be guaranteed when the test and demonstration program gets under way.

Tenix is also the contractor for Project Sea 1657 - Cuttlefish.

This $3.4 million CTD contract was signed in March 2006 and is due to conclude in March 2009, with a field demonstration - again under controlled conditions rather than at sea - in late-2008.

Cuttlefish is a classified program designed to explore active counter-surveillance techniques and help the RAN understand the technology and what it can do for them.

Its main focus is surveillance aircraft employing advanced imaging radars to detect, identify and track surface ships and coordinate attacks.

The RAN has not employed many active systems, but with maritime threats evolving and a new generation of high-value amphibious and supply ships due to enter service over the next few years, this is designed to help quantify a capability gap and the utility of a possible solution.

It had been hoped that this CTD would be integrated with another, to develop an Integrated Electronic Warfare System, but the timelines of the two programs didn't match; however, the two CTDs are independently addressing common design considerations, according to Arnold, and there are synergies which may be captured later on.

The Integrated Electronic Warfare System project, now designated CTD 2006/3, is one of the most complicated CTDs ever undertaken, in both a technical and business sense.

However, its potential is significant and it could have a considerable bearing on the Electronic Surveillance and Attack capabilities of the RAN's Hobart-class Air Warfare Destroyers.

The overall project is worth about $4.7 million, and has been broken into two Tasks. Under Task 1, which was worth about $0.5 million and is now finished, Saab Systems and BAE Systems have explored an integrated hard kill/soft kill capability fusing together Saab's 9LVMk3E combat management system and BAE's Nulka active missile decoy and Ship's Air Defence Model (SADM).

Task 2 brings together BAE Systems as project leader, along with Daronmont Technologies and Tenix.

Their joint aim is to develop an open architecture which allows them to fuse together Electronic Surveillance, data and video information in near-real time to detect and track moving targets and provide targeting-quality size and geo-location information.

The goal is to create an OA interface which will allow simple and rapid integration of Australian-developed EW equipment with both open and proprietary ship combat systems in future.

Opportunities
This has obvious applications for the AWD.

It also provides a vehicle to support exports of Australian EW equipment; these are often constrained by the highly integrated nature of naval combat systems, which in turn, demand high levels of integration work for new sensors and effectors.

This is especially the case with legacy systems which require upgrading, so the longer-term implications of this CTD are significant.

For this reason, despite having five separate companies involved, all parties have worked hard to develop an effective business model and collaborate closely with each other - the mutual benefits to all players are only too obvious.

The demonstration phase for Task 2 is in mid-2008; DSTO's Andrew Arnold acknowledges this has been a tight schedule, but one aim for the CTD has been to provide worthwhile data on the technology into projects such as the AWD in order to shape and inform future configuration and capability decisions.

Tenix is working with Adelaide University on a Directed Infrared Countermeasures (DIRCM) CTD.

This project, worth some $4.6 million, will demonstrate a capability based on technologies developed under the EW Project Agreement, PA10, between Australia and the US, which came to an end recently.

At its heart is the ability to separate the laser source and the lens, with the laser light being transmitted down a flexible fibre optic path rather than a complex array of mirrors.

This should provide a lighter, more flexible and more compact installation.

Under this CTD DSTO has contracted separately with Adelaide University for the advanced fibre-optic cable, which was developed under its photonics research program headed by Professor Tanya Monroe.

This will carry the laser light from DSTO's experimental MURLIN laser to a DIRCM turret developed by Tenix, who will integrate the whole system.

Concurrently, Tenix has also been working on a similar technology under the separate AusDIRCM program, funded by the New Air Combat Capability (NACC) program.

While the CTD isn't going to fly during its planned demonstration in the fourth quarter of 2009, the AusDIRCM system was due to start fight testing in early April.

At the time of writing the CTD program office was exploring options for a follow-on CTD after the completion of the Personal RWR CTD late last year by, again, Tenix.

This project saw the successful demonstration of a personal Radar Warning Receiver (RWR) using a non-optimised helmet-mounted demonstrator.

Its aim was to develop an RWR which could detect battlefield surveillance radars, provide a limited Direction Finding (DF) capability and classify the sensor.

Tenix developed a miniaturised receiver and antenna, but employed a standard power supply; the follow-on CTD would aim to optimise the system and demonstrate higher levels of functionality, noting that the battlefield applications for this sort of technology are somewhat narrow and specialised, though likely to be of strategic value under certain circumstances.

Iatia imaging CTD
Finally, there's another CTD project that's due to complete in mid-year: this is the Quantitative Phase Imaging CTD for which a high-technology Melbourne SME, Iatia Pty Ltd, signed a $2.7 Million contract in 2005.

Light waves have a unique property, their phase, which Iatia has developed techniques to analyse and measure.

This allows observers to identify the direction and even the distance of their source and discriminate between two adjacent, and apparently identical, sources.

To over-simply grossly, the technique enables observers to penetrate camouflage. Iatia is applying this technology to surveillance, target detection and mine detection.

Field trials last year tested whether the technology can detect camouflaged soldiers at 100 metres and tanks at 1,500 metres, through smoke and foliage.

In the future, the technology may be adapted to help clearance divers to spot and examine mines in the turbid waters of harbours and estuaries.

Iatia's CTD will see them develop a software package matched to an imaging system. If the demonstrator shows sufficient promise, the CTD program has had a recent infusion of extra money to take demonstrators like this up to production standard.

This is something which DSTO deliberately hasn't pursued until now, says Andrew Arnold: the CTD program's budget really only allows projects to explore and demonstrate technologies at a relatively low Technology Readiness Level (TRL).

Developing something which is more representative of an operational, production-ready system would involve an exponential increase in cost, so the aim of the program has been firmly to avoid 'productionising' issues and focus solely on the technological issues, he told ADM.

As always, this leaves the issue of whether or not a promising CTD should be helped across the financial 'valley of death' familiar to all innovators, and funded for further development.

To make that leap CTDs require an ADF customer (or potential customer) with a relatively pressing requirement, a financial backer and a sound business plan that's firmly grounded in the DCP.

This is an area where the ADF itself, and industry, will have to do more.

AusDIRCM soars

By Gregor Ferguson, Sydney

Shortly before this edition of ADM is published, the AusDIRCM Steering Group is expected to meet to review the results of a remarkable, though probably under-sold, achievement by Australia's Electronic Warfare community, led in this instance by Tenix's Electronic Systems Division.

During the first week in April a Pel-Air Learjet from RANAS Nowra flight tested an Australian-unique lightweight, low-volume DIRCM system developed by Tenix.

The system was flown against a test rig established by DSTO's EW & Radar Division at the ADF range near Murray Bridge, SA, and according to sources in Canberra it performed "extremely well".

ADM understands it worked perfectly in 37 out of 42 separate passes over the rig, and the unsuccessful passes have been attributed to minor human errors and technical issues.

The success of this trial puts Australia into a very exclusive club: the small group of countries that are able to design, build and fly a high-technology DIRCM system.

The system is actually more than just a DIRCM turret: it includes the AT MURLIN laser developed by DSTO under the PA10 collaborative electronic warfare program with the US; an EADS AAR-60 Missile Approach Warner (MAW); and a pod to carry them - this is the former Nulka Generic Threat Simulator (GTS) pod developed by Tenix as a test and acceptance tool for the Nulka active missile decoy.

The DIRCM turret, MURLIN laser, the advanced fibre optic link between them and the AAR-60 represent the baseline for a lightweight, low-cost DIRCM for use on trooplift helicopters.

Current DIRCMs are too heavy, bulky and expensive for widespread use, but the proliferation of IR-guided MANPADS means the need for self-protection systems for trooplift helicopters and light tactical transport aircraft is growing.

The test rig designed by DSTO is designed to represent typical threats faced by tactical helicopters, though details have not been disclosed.

AusDIRCM is designed to be lighter and cheaper than current DIRCM systems, and therefore affordable in the trooplift application.

No other similar DIRCM exists at this time, so Australia is exploring a new product and technology niche.

Importantly, it has been developed without any ITAR-related IP or components so is not subject to artificial market constraints; elements of the system have been sourced from the UK and Israel as well as Australia.

The AusDIRCM turret itself has been developed with funding from the New Air Combat Capability (NACC) project office; its core technology has obvious applications elsewhere.

The rest of the system has been supported by DSTO and by discretionary funding from within the DMO's Electronic Systems Division.

If the Murray Bridge trial is officially judged a success there is a draft roadmap for further development, but it's not clear whether a Defence or private sector funding mechanism exists as yet for taking AusDIRCM to the next stage of development.

Nevertheless, the need exists, and no other EW Self-Protection (EWSP) system can currently meet it.

Unlike the ill-fated ALR-2002 Radar Warning Receiver which faced tough competition in he fast jet and rotary wing marketplace, AusDIRCM is currently unique and so if it gets the right backing its market prospects could be very promising.

Have we unveiled Scrannel's secrets?

Scrannel was one of the more esoteric of a bunch of CTD projects that were approved a couple of years ago.

Still under development, we speculate here on how this early warning missile detection system might work

By Tom Muir with Fred Haddock, Canberra

In June 2006, nine Capability Technology Demonstrator (CTD) projects, covering a spectrum of applications, were selected to improve the operational capabilities and survivability of the ADF, and won funding approval.

But the most esoteric CTD was 'Scrannel', almost certainly awarded to Avalon Systems for reasons of its strong capability in EW R&D and its well-established connections with DSTO.

This CTD proposal was described in the following terms: "Scrannel is to demonstrate the capabilities of an enhanced missile detection system that could provide ships under threat with additional warning time and thus increase their chances of surviving an attack.

"If successful the system could be fitted to existing and new ships."

The crumbs of interest in that statement are that an 'enhanced' missile detection system is sought and 'additional warning time'.

We also understand that it had been referred to as an 'active ESM'.

At the time, our colleague, Fred Haddock, thought it would be interesting to speculate on how such a system might work and to this end wrote a paper, Cracking the Scrannel Enigma.

This article is based on that paper.

Ship anti-missile systems Counters to anti-ship missiles (ASMs) use longish range missiles such as the semi-active ESSM that requires target RF illumination, very short range missiles such as Mistral and RAM that home passively on IR radiation from the incoming missile, and rapid firing short range guns trained by radar, or now, and far more often, by a EO/IR tracking system because of its superior pointing accuracy to that of radar.

Also used is active electronic attack (RF jamming) that is capable of jamming a missile's RF seeker at line of sight range by transmitting a facsimile of its radiation.

EA is among the EW capabilities sought for the new air warfare destroyer.

RF decoys, such as Nulka, radar chaff and EO (flare) decoys add to a ship's self-defence capabilities, but a notable problem is their very limited flight duration, of perhaps not much more than 2-3 minutes, hence they are launched only when an attack is confirmed.

Because their signatures are not accurate facsimiles of the ship signatures, this anomaly is detectable by modern RF and EO/IR missile seeker heads that process digitally the detected video and compare the signature.

These decoys also operate only at a short range from the launch ship in the majority of cases.

So, if Scrannel can materially reduce the problems of detecting a missile and at a range that gives the target ship precious time to set up its self-defence, it will be an invaluable adjunct to existing self-defence systems.

Scrannel
It is now worth touching on how Scrannel might work and the following characteristics of such a system are postulated:

- The system is required to detect incoming missiles that, following target detection, operate autonomously using an internal guidance system.

- The operational range of the detection system is likely to be over the horizon, say 20 nm, subject to the altitude of the missile, but unlikely to be greater than 50nm, and with an operating altitude of perhaps between 10m and 5000m.

- The system must have an all-weather capability (which radar, except low frequency radar, and E-O systems do not fully possess), and have 24 hr extremely high availability.

- The system should not materially contribute to the ship's RF signature to be fully effective.

- The system must be fundamentally immune to jamming waveforms.

As a detection system two basic techniques are available: RF Passive detection of an incoming missile and RF Active detection of it.

Passive detection
This technique assumes that the missile radiates RF of which there are two sources.

Reflected 'ambient' RF noise from the infinitely large number of RF transmissions that flow around the world at the speed of light almost ad finitum.

While a sensitive receiver might be able to capture some of the reflected energy from the missile, it will also be so confused with ambient noise also detected as to be virtually impossible to resolve one from the other.

The other passive detection method is to search for emissions from the missile, but unless the missile is active and transmitting RF energy it is unlikely to be detected by ESM.

It would appear that the adoption of a passive detection system is unlikely due to its fallibility.

Active detection
Active detection involves direct target illumination and detection of the reflected energy from it.

In other words a radar type of device that obeys the laws of ray optics.

While it is effective, the ship's location is revealed.

There are however recent developments that may ameliorate the problem of active systems giving away the location of the RF transmission that may allow adoption of one of them for this application.

These include Low Probability of Intercept (LPI) radar technology and Ionospheric/Tropospheric propagation of radio signals.

LPI radar technology is based on the use of very low power transmission, which prevents it from being detected by ESM at ranges of beyond a few kilometers whereas, and under the same conditions, a pulsed radar is detectable at ranges of about 50km.

The adoption of low power waveforms, variable in frequency and pulse parameters, may add to the difficulty of detection by ESM.

So the adoption of LPI techniques for transmission of an almost covert radiation, either omni-directionally or using a scanning focussed antenna, and the detection of the reflected signals from the missile by ESM may be feasible.

The problem with a very low power transmission to detect long range targets is that of propagation that obeys the Fourth Power law, this dictates that only one sixteenth of the radiated energy is returned to the source transmission by a reflecting target.

For a Scrannel application the concept of using ionospheric refraction is considered to be feasible by using a high angle, transmission of low frequency, low power, RF energy as the required range is relatively not long.

Range variation would be provided by changing the angle of incidence (grazing angle) of the transmitted waveforms by adjusting the elevation angle of the antenna and hence the, equal, angle of reflection.

Reflections of the original transmission from an incoming missile at OTH ranges could be detected by an ESM.

By modulating the waveforms the identification of returned signals would be readily detectable from other random noise.

ESM is not a new technology, but its value in modern land, sea and air warfare has grown tremendously over recent years because of the increasing availability of high sensitivity wide-band channelised and IFM receivers and extremely high speed digital processing technology that allows the capture of low energy, fleeting, wide frequency spectrum RF signals and their analysis.

Simply stated, ESM is a process of 'trawling' the ether for RF signals that can be captured and then characterised to produce an RF signature structure that is recognisable and repetitive and thus leads to classification of the signal source.

The system has also to be capable of measuring the bearing of selected signal sources and ideally their range, the latter typically using triangulation techniques.

As the RF spectrum and application diversity expands the ether is becoming increasingly crowded and this demands more sensitive, higher speed, extremely wide-band, very precise, receivers and signal processors, but in the military domain the bandwidth of greatest interest for electronic warfare is 2GHz-40GHz.

This does not suggest that Scrannel will operate within this bandwidth.

Noteworthy is the fact that the detection range of an ESM system is limited only by receiver sensitivity and the radiated RF power of signals of interest.

In conclusion, the Scrannel CTD will apply one of the only two RF techniques available, active or passive.

If an active technique can be adopted that enables an OTH missile to be covertly illuminated, using ionospheric refraction of a selected RF wavelength, and if the facsimile signals that it radiates can be detected and resolved using a suitable ESM set, the missile will be seen as a moving target.

The possibility also exists that the missile will scintillate at a particular wavelength.

Range of the missile will be measurable reasonably accurately by knowing the geometry of the transmission and the height of the refracting region.

If a passive RF technique is used it will have to rely on random illumination of the missile by RF 'noise' that saturates the atmosphere and reflection of it at sufficient strength to be detectable by the ESM.

At the same time the ESM will be able to detect directly received noise of similar characteristics, thus presenting the problem of resolving refracted noise from the missile and direct noise.

So, it appears unlikely that a passive RF technique for OTH missile detection will work.