Integrated Electronic Warfare Systems aboard the United States Navy 21st Century Warship

Abstract

The current world geopolitical situation has resulted in an ever increasing number of third-world nations and terrorists states gaining access to advanced military technology and weaponry that was previously limited to first-world nations. The blue water and littoral areas that are the operational environments of the United States and Coalition naval forces are within range of capable enemy missile systems as was evident in the attacks on the United States Ship Stark by Iraq in 1987 and the Israeli Naval Ship Hanit by Hezbollah in July 2006 Given the increasing threat of Anti-Ship Cruise Missiles (ASCM), the complete integration of an effective Electronic Warfare system into the combat systems of U.S. and Coalition maritime forces is paramount. Research has shown that this integration must include a computer-aided human element in the decision process. The project objective was to develop an improved, advanced Electronic Warfare architecture with a complete range of automated operation using a Human-In-the-Loop that could be integrated into existing and future combat systems. A model was developed that demonstrates solutions that integrate hard-kill defensive systems with soft-kill subsystems, managed by a human, in order to provide a completely integrated capability to defend against land, air, and sea-launched ASCMs.