Northrop Grumman delivers F-35 EW simulation suite to US Navy

US defense technology company Northrop Grumman has delivered its electronic warfare simulation system to the US Navy.

The multispectral testing solution will help the US Navy prepare the F-35 aircraft for the complex electromagnetic spectrum environment.

Recently, Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division (NAWCWD) Point Mugu took delivery of what Northrop Grumman described as “the most sophisticated test environment the company has ever created.”

As explained by the company, the environment consists of Northrop Grumman’s combat electromagnetic environment simulator (CEESIM), signal measurement system (SMS) and other stimulators, all under control of the synchronizer controller system (SCS).

“Keeping the F-35’s systems ready requires a fully integrated test environment like we have developed with CEESIM, SMS and SCS,” said Joe Downie, director, land and avionics C4ISR division, Northrop Grumman Mission Systems. “These systems work together to provide the environment complexity and density, measurement and analysis capability, and test control capability necessary to evaluate the F-35 in a realistic mission scenario.”

At the center of the environment is the CEESIM, which simulates multiple, simultaneous RF emitters as well as static and dynamic platform attributes to faithfully model true-to-war conditions. CEESIM’s Advanced Pulse Generation high speed direct digital synthesizer technology is used to generate realistic electronic warfare mission scenarios.

The SMS provides wide bandwidth signal measurement, recording and analysis capability which is used to validate the test environment and evaluate the system under test performance.

The SCS provides the tools to program an integrated multispectral test scenario, including threat radars, communications signals, radar and EO/IR signatures. The SCS also manages the execution of the scenario by all of the stimulators to ensure a coherent multispectral test environment.