Cassidian’s new-generation Vehicle Protection Jammer

Neelam Mathews

Jan 26, 2012

Cassidian, the defense and security division of EADS, has developed a new-generation Vehicle Protection Jammer that significantly enhances the protection of military vehicles against attacks by Radio-Controlled Improvised Explosive Devices. After passing extensive field trials, the series production ramp-up started in December 2011.

"Lessons learnt in recent conflicts prove that radio-controlled explosive devices remain one of the major threats in asymmetric scenarios," explained Elmar Compans, head of Sensors and Electronic Warfare at Cassidian. "Progress in digital technology now gives us the means to counter this threat by far more effectively than hitherto possible", he said in a statement.

Cassidian's Vehicle Protection Jammer uses the new, ultra-fast Smart Responsive Jamming Technology to enhance the protection level substantially. It detects and classifies radio signals intended to ignite a roadside bomb. Then, it responds and transmits in real-time jamming signals tailored exactly to the hostile frequency band. Thereby, it is capitalizing on new digital receiver and signal processing technologies to achieve reaction times of well below a microsecond. This avoids the huge diverging loss of output power inherent in earlier-generation barrage jammers and concentrates the jamming energy on currently active threats only.

The Vehicle Protection Jammer core equipment is platform-independently certified according to German safety regulation including the protection of operators and maintenance personnel. It can easily be built into even small vehicles and therefore is ideally suited to replace vintage equipment.