Technologies Shaping the Future of Electronic Warfare
In the world of electronic warfare, significant changes are occurring due to increasing global tensions. Breakthroughs in silicon chips, evolving systems, and rising demand are leading to the release of newer and more capable systems. As the number of systems operating at different frequencies increases on today’s battlefield, there is also growing demand for wider bandwidth receiver and transmitter architectures in electronic warfare. The increasing demands and the intensity of RF spectrum usage are pushing system designers to develop more capable systems.
With advancing technology, there is a shift away from traditional analog and digital systems toward receiver and transmitter architectures featuring direct RF sampling. On the antenna technology side, multi-beam AESA (Active Electronically Scanned Array) technologies have already started shaping the future concept of electronic warfare. The concept of connectivity and the internet of combat systems is gaining importance, and units with more modular and open communication standard interfaces are being integrated into systems.
In addition to their inherent capabilities, systems with adaptive and cognitive structures that can interact and share data with each other have reached a level where they can reduce the burden on users and operators, especially in increasingly complex integrated system architectures and operational concepts. In line with these trends, it will come as no surprise that artificial intelligence will follow cognitive systems into not only modern warfare and defense doctrines but also into the doctrine of electronic warfare. With the proliferation of unmanned systems, it will soon be possible to see command and control systems equipped with artificial intelligence, deep learning, and large AI models on the battlefield.
Direct RF Sampling
Advancing technology, the widespread use of RF, and the increasingly congested RF spectrum are making today's battlefield dense and competitive. With this growing competition, it has become essential for modern electronic warfare systems to be agile, adaptable, and capable of real-time processing.
ASELSAN is closely following this technology and is carrying out activities aimed at developing systems equipped with it. With electronic support (ES) and electronic attack (EA) systems based on direct RF sampling architecture, it will be possible to monitor much wider bandwidth signals in real time with high precision and accuracy, leading to significant improvements in system performance. In this way, dominance over the RF spectrum will be strengthened, and much more successful, effective, and game-changing systems will be offered to users.
Synchronization
In the past, electronic warfare systems operated independently and separately, but with globalization and advancing technology, all types of systems have become capable of communicating and interacting with one another. In today’s electronic warfare environment, achieving success requires inevitable communication and coordination between systems.
To ensure this coordination and seamless interoperability, synchronization between systems holds critical importance. Modern electronic warfare systems can now perform time management in the most efficient way by synchronizing with one another as well as with other systems such as radars. With proper synchronization, data sharing between systems with different capabilities has also become possible.
As a result, data from systems with varying capabilities can be fused, enabling the most accurate detection possible and allowing for real-time data sharing to support immediate and optimal decision-making.
In systems where actions are taken and processes are executed within milliseconds and microseconds, synchronization minimizes delays, making it possible to perform coordinated techniques and other actions that require low latency.
While synchronization technologies in the past relied on low-frequency signals or reference markers, today's advanced technologies offer a variety of new solutions for synchronization.
AESA Technology
Multi-beam AESA (Active Electronically Scanned Array) technology plays a critical role in shaping today’s electronic warfare and radar systems. In the future, we will continue to see systems with multi-beam AESA architectures that push the limits of shared antenna aperture technology—developed to be more advanced and compact specifically for electronic warfare and radar applications.
Unlike traditional antenna steering technologies that focus on a single target, multi-beam AESA systems can generate multiple high-power beams simultaneously. These beams operate independently across different frequencies and domains, enabling them to neutralize multiple threats at once.
This capability makes it possible to carry out different electronic warfare (EW) operations simultaneously. Major military powers around the world are integrating multi-beam AESA technology into their electronic warfare strategies. ASELSAN has also acquired these capabilities and is now positioned to develop innovative technologies in this field.
Interoperability
The electromagnetic spectrum is becoming increasingly complex. Factors such as the growing complexity of radar parameter sets due to advancing technologies, and the overlap of communication frequency bands with radar frequency bands, are making the spectrum more complicated.
To cope with this complex and dense environment, deploying multiple electronic warfare subsystems capable of operating together has become critically important for achieving electromagnetic superiority on the battlefield.
For future electronic warfare systems to achieve the desired success, it is essential that they operate without disrupting friendly systems (such as radar, altimeters, GPS, and link communications), share data with one another during missions, and even coordinate task allocation during operations. ASELSAN, with its wide range of products and extensive experience in platform integration and field operations, offers solutions that go beyond current technologies in ensuring interoperability across its systems. It provides solutions that optimize the performance of both EW systems and the systems that must operate alongside them in today's field and continues R&D efforts for game-changing technologies for future battle environments.
Cognitive Electronic Warfare
Artificial intelligence and machine learning will continue to drive major transformations across many fields, including electronic warfare. AI has the potential to enable systems to process vast amounts of data, interpret it rapidly, and make real-time decisions.
Cognitive electronic warfare is expected to create a new world of EW in which AI-supported systems autonomously detect and analyze electromagnetic spectrum threats, taking proactive measures against evolving threats. Unlike traditional rule-based and library-dependent EW systems, cognitive EW will provide operators and forces with rapid and effective countermeasures against modern, reprogrammable, and agile electronic systems.
With rapid advancements in AI and machine learning, cognitive EW will play a growing role in electronic attack. In the future, AI-powered EW systems will be capable of learning from real-time battlefield data without relying solely on predefined countermeasure patterns.
As the line between cyber systems and electronic warfare systems continues to blur, AI-supported systems are expected to dynamically disrupt enemy networks, effectively neutralizing communications, weapon systems, and radar with precision.
Cognitive EW will use deep learning models to predict enemy radar behavior and apply proactive jamming techniques. AI-supported spectrum management will enable effective jamming without interrupting friendly communications.
Cognitive electronic warfare will mark a transition from rule-based scenarios and interventions in electronic attack to dynamic, AI-driven adaptation. As targets and threats become more agile and reprogrammable, cognitive EW will become an indispensable architecture for maintaining electromagnetic dominance. AI, being highly adaptable to various technologies, will significantly enhance the effectiveness of the systems it integrates with, making its development and use highly important. As AI models and algorithms evolve, they will become increasingly integrable into systems, leading to substantial advancements.
By eliminating human errors and delays associated with manual operations, these systems are expected to surpass current system efficiency. Additionally, as they continue to learn from data, these systems can improve themselves without requiring physical hardware tests and can demonstrate high accuracy in real combat scenarios. For these reasons, the development of AI technologies is expected to significantly enhance the capabilities of electronic warfare systems.