BAE unveils Shadow EW, compact solutions for small aerial platforms

Shadow EW family of systems (courtesy BAE Systems)

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — BAE Systems today unveiled Shadow EW, described by the company as a family of electronic warfare payloads, specifically designed for small airborne platforms.

BAE said the “solutions provide critical situational awareness and self-defense capabilities, improving mission effectiveness in contested environments” and “support a full range of EW mission applications, including situational awareness, targeting, deception, survivability, and collaborative effects delivery.”

“The modern battlefield is changing at an unprecedented pace and all platforms, regardless of size, require adaptable electronic warfare capabilities to survive,” Rebecca Cruz, director of Shadow EW products at BAE Systems, said in a company release. “Shadow EW solutions provide flexible, configurable hardware paired with iterative software updates to counter rapidly evolving threats.”

The war in Ukraine has demonstrated that smaller aerial platforms, such as rapidly produced drones, will be a critical compliment to traditional military platforms and ground soldiers. It’s also shown that much of the fight depends on electronic warfare, which rapidly evolves. In other words, mass is now a key part of the game in future warfare.

BAE says it can produce Shadow EW systems in large quantities at a low cost, relying on commercial microchips for high-powered computing and supply chain efficiency.

Josh Niedzwiecki, BAE’s vice president of business development, told reporters during a briefing at AFA the company built this family of systems ahead of specific need, spending millions of dollars based upon what they’ve witnessed in the environment, while responding to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s call for industry to move faster.

“Secretary Hegseth came out with the Arsenal of Freedom acquisition reform, and you look at kind of the need to go faster, the need for affordable mass, and to drive more volume into the battle space, it shifted our corporate focus, and we made a strategic decision to instead of, like we have in the past work, with a platform prime and the government to build a customized solution to a very unique set of requirements, we said it’s all about speed to fleet and getting mass to the warfighter faster,” he said.

Shadow is designed with commercial chips, instead of the highly customized EW systems BAE has built for F-22, F-15 and F-35. The company also went with open standards, to try and be as platform agnostic as possible.

“By being compatible with those architectures, we also make it easier for those platform primes to integrate this into their system,” he said.

Shadow EW系列系统（图片由BAE系统公司提供）

马里兰州国家港——BAE系统公司今天推出了Shadow EW，该公司将其描述为一系列专为小型空中平台设计的电子战有效载荷。

BAE表示，“这些解决方案提供了关键的态势感知和自卫能力，提高了在对抗环境中的任务效率”，并且“支持全方位的电子战任务应用，包括态势感知、目标定位、欺骗、生存能力和协同效应交付”。

“现代战场正以前所未有的速度变化，所有平台，无论大小，都需要具备适应性强的电子战能力才能生存，”英国航空航天系统公司（BAE Systems）影子电子战产品总监丽贝卡·克鲁兹在一份公司新闻稿中表示。“影子电子战解决方案提供灵活、可配置的硬件，并配合迭代式软件更新，以应对快速演变的威胁。”

乌克兰战争表明，小型空中平台，例如快速生产的无人机，将成为传统军事平台和地面部队的重要补充。战争也表明，电子战在战争中扮演着至关重要的角色，而电子战技术也在迅速发展。换言之，规模优势已成为未来战争的关键因素。

BAE表示，它能够以低成本大量生产Shadow电子战系统，依靠商用微芯片实现高性能计算和供应链效率。

BAE 业务发展副总裁 Josh Niedzwiecki 在 AFA 的一次简报会上告诉记者，该公司在出现具体需求之前就建造了这一系列系统，根据他们在环境中观察到的情况，花费了数百万美元，同时响应了国防部长 Pete Hegseth 要求行业加快步伐的呼吁。

“赫格塞斯部长提出了‘自由兵工厂’采购改革方案，考虑到需要加快速度、需要经济实惠的大规模生产，以及需要将更多数量武器投入战场，这改变了我们的企业重心，我们做出了一项战略决策：不再像过去那样，与平台主承包商和政府合作，为一套非常独特的需求打造定制解决方案，而是要加快舰队部署速度，更快地将大量武器交付给作战人员，”他说。

Shadow系统采用的是商用芯片，而不是BAE系统公司为F-22、F-15和F-35战斗机高度定制的电子战系统。该公司还采用了开放标准，力求尽可能做到平台无关性。

他说：“通过与这些架构兼容，我们也使得这些平台厂商更容易将其集成到他们的系统中。”