Pitching US market, Leonardo UK launches BriteStorm attritable UAS stand-in jammer

AUSA 2024 — Making the US market a top priority for orders, Leonardo UK today unveiled a new lightweight, stand-in jamming system to be equipped on attritable Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) and Air Launched Effects (ALE).

Designed to operate ahead of friendly forces and suppress Integrated Air Defence Systems (IADS), the 2.5-kilogram (5.5 pound) Electronic Warfare (EW) airborne countermeasure has already undergone successful flight trials with the UK’s Rapid Capabilities Office — a future technologies and test agency — while three US-based test assets are currently being used to demonstrate the capability to potential customers stateside, Leonardo UK executives told Breaking Defense.

In bid to secure BriteStorm industrial agreements, the manufacturer has also opened talks with prime manufacturers involved in the US Air Force’s Combat Collaborative Aircraft (CCA), US Army’s Future Tactical UAS (FTUAS) and other DoD-led Air Launched Effects (ALE) programs.

The company was moved to develop BriteStorm due to a “drive in the market” for an attritable UAS integrated jamming capability that can stay ahead of friendly forces, in order to deliver “sophisticated countermeasure techniques,” as an alternative to the more traditional method of “large, expensive, strategic” standoff or escort jamming aircraft sitting behind them, said Mark Randall, EW campaign manager at Leonardo UK.

“It’s hard to shift towards a contested environment where you cannot be sure you’ve got freedom of maneuver, freedom of action, and doing everything that you possibly can do to suppress and confuse the enemy … [but that] is exactly what BriteStorm has been developed to do,” he explained, adding the system has “applicability across all three domains.”

Leonardo has already “sold” a number of BriteStorm payloads to the UK’s Rapid Capabilities Office, which has conducted “successful flight trials” with the system, according to Randall.

Leonardo UK declined to comment on aircraft that took part in the tests, but Randall noted that an “element” of the UK’s Autonomous Collaborative Platform (ACP) strategy [PDF], a derivative to CCA, relates directly to new EW capabilities. The strategy identifies a Suppression of Enemy Air Defence (SEAD) mission, underpinned by stand in jamming and decoy capabilities, as one possible use case for autonomous and collaborative type UAS.

A focus on gaining a foothold on the US stand-in jammer market persists for Leonardo however.

“At the moment, we’ve got three trial assets in the US, which we’re using to demonstrate [BriteStorm] to the end user community, and we are already very pleased with the number of US primes involved in the programs we just talked about [FTUAS, CCA and ALE efforts] who are coming to us to discuss what EW payload capability we can provide,” said Michael Lea, VP Sales EW at Leonardo UK.

Griffon Aerospace and Textron Systems are competing for FTUAS, which seeks a RQ-7B Shadow UAS replacement. Meanwhile, General Atomics and Anduril were contracted in April to build the first tranche of CCA prototypes.

Evolved from the manufacturer’s BriteCloud active expendable decoy, set for integration on US F-35 fifth generation sets, and its Digital Radio Frequency Memory (DRFM) technology, BriteStorm serves to suppress ground based radars, as opposed to the former’s speciality of disrupting incoming missile radar guidance platforms, said Leonardo in a company statement today.

“BriteStorm works by using Leonardo’s mission-tested DRFM technology to detect and evaluate the electronic warfare threat environment and then choose the most relevant countermeasure technique,” it added.

Sharing electronic “noise” or confusing enemy radars with “dozens” of false fighter jet signatures are among a range of techniques BriteStorm operators can tap into to overwhelm and suppress threats.

As part of a “capability spiral” for BriteCloud, Leonardo plans on adding a “live update” capability to those jamming techniques, which will be enabled through “communication links,” said Randall.

A “standard” BriteStorm payload includes a “platform-specific” antenna, transmit-receive modules and the Leonardo manufactured Miniature Technique Generator, according to the company statement.

The system is produced out of the Leonardo UK EW research and manufacturing hub in Luton, England.