Keysight Awarded U.S. Air Force Contract for Electromagnetic Spectrum Threat Simulators

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Keysight Technologies, Inc. has received an $18.5 million U.S. Air Force contract to integrate and deliver two Electronic Warfare Threat Simulator (EWTS) systems, with sustainment support consisting of software patch management, field engineer support, non-critical spare parts, critical spare parts, and storage.

National defense relies on the electromagnetic (EM) spectrum for radar, communications, enhanced situational awareness, and maneuvering. Signals in electronic warfare (EW) environments are rapidly evolving, creating the need to test using high-fidelity and complex emitters in realistic EM conditions. To meet these challenges, the military needs modern EWTS systems to create and analyze high-density environments for testing and evaluating the systems it uses for EM operations.

Keysight meets this need with the new EWTS Solution that allows the evaluation of system using dynamic flight paths, multi-emitters, and interferers. This customizable threat simulation solution is built on the Keysight M9484C Vector signal generator, with signal descriptor word (SDW) streaming and virtual channel options, to deliver unparalleled signal generation capability.

Reasons the Air Force chose Keysight's EWTS include:

• Most technologically advanced and capable threat simulator – The increased radio frequency (RF) channel generation capability of the solution provides the Air Force with a more realistic EW test environment.
• Innovative software automation – Keysight's Simulation View Software automates test processes with both data and RF capture and analysis tools. In addition, the software automatically imports data from a wide variety of sources, storing it in an open, reusable format and allows operators to easily verify results with a comprehensive set of visualization tools.
• Reconfigurable to meet the need of any mission – Upgradable solution framework allows system customization and future scalability with the incremental buildout of software and hardware components as technologies and requirements change.
• Ongoing technical support – KeysightCare provides system support, warranty coverage, and software upgrades to reduce the risk of system downtime and ensure efficient operation after delivery.

Additional benefits of the Keysight EWTS solution are:

• Cost-efficient, easy-to-use testing platform – Leverages commercial off the shelf (COTS) technology to cut testing costs, enabling quicker time to test with higher confidence and greater realism.
• Sophisticated, realistic mission simulations – Enables users to run mission simulations with greater realism, dynamic scenarios, closed loop feedback, automated RF verification, and legacy threat model imports.
• Industry-leading RF performance – Delivers up to 54 GHz of frequency range and 2.5 GHz of modulation bandwidth, along with all types of angle of arrival (AoA) simulation and up to 8 pulse on pulse outputs.

Greg Patschke, General Manager of Keysight's Aerospace / Defense and Government Solutions Group, said: "Keysight is uniquely positioned to aid in protecting system operators in all electromagnetic spectrum environments and we are working hard to ensure that our defense partners have the most sophisticated technology. With our Electronic Warfare Threat Simulation Solution, the U.S. Air Force will strengthen its operational readiness with a platform that enables it to simulate and analyze sophisticated electronic warfare signals with the ability to scale and upgrade as its requirements change."