Countering electronic warfare threats with confidence
Flying modern fighter aircraft is an extreme challenge. Doing it in a mission environment where pilots and fighters face increasingly advanced threats, the challenge becomes even greater. How do you gain a competitive advantage and arm pilots with both the means and the confidence to detect, deceive and counter such threats? Here’s how.
Modern radar and air defence systems are agile in all electromagnetic parameters as a result of the latest technology, making them much more difficult to detect and classify. This means that today’s fighter pilots are operating in an extremely complex and multifaceted signals environment, which places extremely high demands on modern fighter aircraft and their Electronic Warfare capabilities. The ability to stay undetected when entering enemy airspace is vital for any fighter mission.
“As a fighter pilot, knowing exactly what is going on around me is crucial. You need to have full awareness of the situation to be able to see first, understand first and act first, to maintain the combative edge over your adversary. All information collected by the collaborating fighters - the tactical unit - and other available battlefield sensors need to be linked, processed and presented in a way that provides the awareness and readiness needed to act with high operational effect”, says Jussi Halmetoja, former Gripen pilot and operational advisor at Saab.
“As a fighter pilot, knowing exactly what is going on around me is crucial."
Armed with confidence
With this in mind, Saab set out on a mission to create the smartest airborne Electronic Warfare solution available for fighters on the market today. The goal was to develop a solution that provides a complete package of unrivalled survivability, superior situational awareness, freedom to act, and a safe return home. All to ensure that fighter pilots, when setting out on missions, would be more than confident of coming out on top. The result is Arexis – a new generation EW solution that combines the very latest in self-protection and Electronic Attack, and well prepares any fighter for entry and operation in contested airspace.
Arexis provides a complete picture of threats across the entire electromagnetic spectrum and, when necessary, can jam and deceive many enemy systems – all at the same time. It provides the ability to detect, counter and stay ahead of any threat, enabling the pilot to focus on the task at hand.
“In the contested environment, this is the difference between being able to engage or forced to abort."
“In the contested environment, this is the difference between being able to engage or forced to abort. A superior situational awareness provides the tactical edge needed to secure mission success, platform survivability, and successfully conduct every mission”, says Jussi Halmetoja.
The deceptive advantage with Electronic Attack
With Arexis’ advanced escort jamming capability, the pilot can operate inside the threat range of hostile air defence systems, enabling tactical advantage. Arexis’ suppression capability uses electronic attack by actively disturbing, deceiving and misleading adversaries, thereby creating a window of opportunity key to accomplish mission objectives. To keep high-value assets safe, Arexis can also launch aerial decoys with the ability to detect, deceive and suppress a wide range of threats.
Empowered by AI
In today's rapid and fast-changing mission environments, human capacity is often a constraint, which means that we have become increasingly dependent on the support of advanced technologies. With Arexis’ highly sophisticated Artificial Intelligence (AI), a minimum addition to aircrew workload is required. The system automatically and rapidly provides full protection and offensive capabilities – even to an entire tactical unit.
Digitization is key
What are the secrets of Arexis’ unique capabilities? Part of the answer lies in its unique ability to manage and digitize a wide range and high number of signals and sensor data with extreme rapidity and accuracy. This is made possible using the latest AI technologies in digital data processing in conjunction with high-end gallium nitride antenna technology.
Proven and selected by Gripen E/F
At Saab, we have a long history of equipping advanced fighter aircraft from around the world with self-protection solutions. Today, the latest generation EW solution of Arexis has been proven and selected for Gripen E/F.
The result is a fighter which is more than ready for whatever comes its way, today and in the future. Don’t just take our word for it. Here’s what a Gripen pilot thinks of it!
“Fighter missions in contested environments are never going to be easy or without risks. It requires you as a pilot to trust your aircraft and the tactical systems to deliver what it takes to enter enemy airspace, operate within it, and then safely return home. With the EW solution on Gripen, I get all that and the confidence to win”, says Jussi Halmetoja.
Continuously outsmarting threats
The first generation of Saab’s radar warner was installed on a Saab 32 Lansen more than 60 years ago when the Cold War was very much ongoing. As pioneers in Electronic Warfare, Saab’s philosophy has always been to invest in innovative technologies to detect, deceive and counter threats in the smartest possible ways. This line of thinking resulted in Arexis and other leading-edge and often game-changing systems, constantly elevating Saab’s EW solutions to new, higher levels. The work continues.
Learn more at https://www.saab.com/products/arexis