After divesting of much of its EW tool set following the Cold War, the Army has sought to rebuild its arsenal and tactics within the spectrum. That includes the gamut of electromagnetic spectrum operations such as electronic attack, or jamming, electronic support, or sensing the environment for enemy signals, and electronic protect, or guarding friendly systems and units from enemy jamming.

Observations from Ukraine have solidified the importance of robust and redundant capabilities, particularly within the spectrum.

In addition to having jammers for offensive actions, U.S. forces must possess a raft of other tools to be able to protect themselves from enemy jammers, hide within the spectrum and deceive the enemy.

As evidenced in Ukraine, units can be located and targeted with munitions solely based on their emissions within the electromagnetic spectrum.

“Commanders must be able to see themselves to control their emissions and defeat the enemy’s ability to sense, identify, locate, and target them. This is critically important when observations from current conflicts around the world show there are eight minutes from identification in the EMS to artillery impacting on the detected location of said emission,” the Army’s Multidomain Operations Range Guide states.

As such, the Army’s budget request would place more investments in these key areas of understanding its signatures and protecting forces with a combination of new-start programs, repurposed portfolios and existing efforts.

The Modular Electro-Magnetic Spectrum System (MEMSS) is a new start this budget cycle, stemming out of a prior science-and-technology effort called Modular Electromagnetic Spectrum Deception Suite (MEDS). Officials have previewed the effort in years past, noting some prototyping had gone toward developing it.

The Army is requesting $9.1 million in 2026 for the effort in its research-and-development budget. Specifically, it would provide force protection and freedom of maneuver through “radio frequency technical effects,” a term the Army uses to describe classified capabilities.

MEMSS will look to prioritize iterative development with commercial-off-the-shelf capabilities, a top priority for the Army and its electronic warfare portfolio overall.

The budget documents note that the system will be given to units as part of the Army’s transforming-in-contact (TiC) initiative, which aims to speed up how the service buys technologies and designs its forces and concepts by injecting emerging capabilities into units and letting them experiment with them during exercises and deployments.

The documents note that these units will receive prototyped capability and, as part of the program, fiscal ’26 funding will support testing to ensure it performs as expected against realistic threats to include both lab testing and evaluation from soldiers from TiC 2.0 units, which now involves armored formations as well as Multi-Domain Task Force and Army special operations units.

Another new start within the Army’s budget request is a program called Counter Surveillance Reconnaissance (CSR). It’s envisioned as a family of systems to provide force protection at echelon — specifically ground-based capabilities for division, corps and theater commanders — through enhanced situational awareness, operational planning tools for effects coordination and electronic support capabilities.

This program, along with many others, is included in the Army’s new Electronic Warfare Agile Systems Development program.

For this budget request, the Army sought to secure agile funding for a limited pot of systems: electronic warfare, unmanned aerial systems and counter-UAS. This agile funding allows the Army to consolidate capabilities into a single portfolio to better move money around and be more responsive to real-world events, as opposed to having to ask Congress for reprogramming requests. The budget documents note this pilot effort provides enhanced capabilities through fostering innovation and the accelerated development of promising technology.

The Army is requesting $34.4 million in R&D funding for CSR in fiscal 2026. The program aims to use technologies that will hide units’ locations within the electromagnetic spectrum. So-called low-probability-of-detection/low-probability-of-attribution non-kinetic effects will establish “unobserved” positions and preserve combat power, the documents note.

The CSR program will provide three distinct lines of effort for counter-space surveillance that will be controlled by an overarching mission planner and common execution software to plan and employ non-kinetic effects to protect friendly forces.

The prototype development for all three lines of effort are scheduled to begin in second quarter of 2026. The first unit issued for the first line of effort is scheduled for third quarter 2029, with the second and third slated for fourth quarter 2030.

The Army’s budget request is also asking for $1.5 million in R&D funding for a program to develop an integrated multi-mission electronic warfare force protection system.

That program, Integrated Electronic Warfare Systems, shifted in funding and terminology compared with last year’s budget release. It has now been moved to the agile funding pilot.

Additionally, in the previous budget proposal, the Army sought mainly to fund Counter-Radio Controlled Improvised Explosive Device (RCIED) Electronic Warfare (CREW), a term that is a relic of the Global War on Terror when insurgents used radio devices to trigger roadside bombs.

The CREW technology, however, is still relevant today as it can be used for counter-UAS and counter-communications.  

Now, the program is aiming to prototype an integrated multi-mission electronic warfare force protection system that can respond to changing signals of interest employed by adversaries.

When a signal is discovered that isn’t in a unit’s library of known signals, a countermeasure must be devised, which historically could have taken months. That pace is unacceptable for the fast-paced warfare of the future. The Army and other services are looking at rapid reprogramming on the battlefield, in part, by leveraging artificial intelligence.

“Electromagnetic warfare (EW) capability gaps exist across several areas, including the need for development of more sophisticated countermeasures, and the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced analytics into EW operations. Specifically, the development of advanced countermeasures that can effectively disrupt or neutralize enemy EW capabilities is crucial, especially in the face of evolving technologies and tactics. Integrating AI and advanced analytics into EW operations will significantly enhance the ability to quickly identify and respond to threats,” the budget documents state. “VMEWS is intended to provide a suite of electromagnetic warfare capabilities to protect wheeled and tracked vehicles against a wide range of radio frequency-controlled threats.”

The Army expects a competitive commercial solutions offering that leads to an other transaction agreement for a tech demonstration of a vehicle mounted multi-mission electronic warfare force protection system to accelerate technology maturation and prototyping.

A new procurement effort for the Army in the budget request is the Spectrum Situational Awareness System (S2AS), which will provide sensing and visualization of what units look like in the spectrum and allow commanders to be able to sense and report in real-time their command post signatures, sources of electromagnetic interference — either from coalition partners or the enemy — and threat emissions.

The Army awarded 3dB Labs earlier this year an other transaction agreement to develop and demonstrate a prototype. S2AS had already undergone a prototyping effort prior to the award.

The fiscal 2026 budget request includes $17.6 million in procurement funding for S2AS as a new start in procurement and under the “Electronic Warfare” program, which is also new this year as part of the agile pilot. Those funds would enable procurement, delivery, training and initial sparing of S2AS, according to budget documents, which state the Army plans to buy 20 systems.

The budget also asks for $8.9 million in research-and-development funding for S2AS.

The Army will be using transforming-in-contact units to help inform how the program matures.

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Specifically, that effort is for the forthcoming Spectrum Situational Awareness System, or S2AS, envisioned to be a commercial off-the-shelf solution that will provide sensing and visualization of what units look like in the spectrum and allow commanders to be able to sense and report in real-time their command post signature, sources of electromagnetic interference — either from coalition partners or the enemy — and what threat emissions look like. Army officials have said this is an important capability for operations in a complex future environment where forces will have to adeptly maneuver within the invisible electromagnetic spectrum.

That program is a new start in fiscal 2025, with the Army requesting $9.3 million in research-and-development funds for integration, testing, and technical and program management support.

However, with the continuing resolution and budget impasse on Capitol Hill, development is more challenging.

Thus, the Army is using ongoing efforts associated with its Terrestrial Layer System-Echelons Above Brigade (TLS-EAB) — initially designed as an integrated EW and signals intelligence platform primarily for divisions, corps and Multi-Domain Task Forces to sense across greater distances — to run risk reduction for S2AS.

“There’s been other efforts within EAB that allowed us to understand what software capabilities are out there to get after that type of spectrum situational awareness. We’ve made those investments and I think what you’ll see is upon the [middle tier of acquisition] initiation, once the CR is lifted and the program is running, that will move really quick,” Brig. Gen. Wayne “Ed” Barker, program executive officer for intelligence, electronic warfare and sensors, said in an interview at the Army’s Technical Exchange Meeting.

“I’m thinking inside of 12 to 18 months, we could probably be at a rapid fielding for that software from an S2AS standpoint,” he added. “We’ve taken the opportunity that if we’ve had implied and specified requirements within other programs, specifically EAB, that meet the need of S2AS, we’ve used that to burn down that risk so that once S2AS was initiated, we didn’t have to spend another year, year and a half, doing the analysis to get us to that point where we can make a rapid fielding decision.”

Last year, the Army decided to spilt up the signals intelligence and electronic warfare portions of its TLS family of systems, which also include the EAB’s smaller cousin, the Brigade Combat Team system. Barker said that ultimately was the right decision for the Army to make.

The service is on track to deliver signals intelligence prototypes for both TLS systems by next spring, while platform electronic warfare from a jamming perspective is still pre-decisional and the Army is still examining what that might look like, Barker said.

The Army is taking a hard look at its entire electronic enterprise and capabilities as it seeks to potentially take on sophisticated nation-state adversaries in large-scale combat operations.

“The nature of the fundamental of everything is going on within our portfolio from an EW standpoint, is rapidly changing. The challenge within the EW portfolio is the fact that the decades of [counterinsurgency] operations, we just did not necessarily have to be in that fight to the degree to which we think we’re going to be in it today,” Barker said at the Association of Old Crows annual symposium Thursday. “We kind of had to start clean because we didn’t really have the capabilities that were needed from an EW standpoint. We’re building that up on a daily basis and trying understand what that means across the not just the materiel side of the house, but how do you train EW?”

Elsewhere within the electronic protection and management space, the Army is still figuring out what its Modular Electromagnetic Spectrum System (MEMSS) program will look like. MEMMS stemmed out of a prior science-and-technology effort called Modular Electromagnetic Spectrum Deception Suite (MEDS) and will be a new start in fiscal 2026.

“How do we confuse the enemy? It’s really about creating those types of dilemmas that impact their decision space. How are we providing our commander freedom of maneuver to do the things that they need to do, to provide them the time to either move or make decisions?” Barker said, adding his office is working across the Army to help figure that out on the requirements and materiel side.

“We got to be very conscious within this space to make sure that what we’re doing is going to impact the adversary’s targeting cycle. But we also have to be conscious of what the range of options are that we want to present to the Army,” Barker said. “It can be anything from attritable sensors that emulate all the way up to the potentially the emulate a command post. But there’s costs associated with that, and so we’re trying to be very, very conscious of that.”

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“We need decoy systems such that if … the enemy is looking at us through the electromagnetic spectrum, they can’t pinpoint us. They might be able to see us, but they can’t understand us … We need to be able to raise the noise floor of the signal to noise ratio, such that again, they might be able to see that we are in a generalized location, but the enemy won’t be able to pinpoint or target our capabilities,” Maj. Gen. Paul Stanton, commander of the Cyber Center of Excellence, said Friday during a virtual event hosted by Defense One. “In FY ’25, we believe that we’re seeing the very rapid maturation of these obfuscation and decoy capabilities. We will look at rapidly advancing that technology.”

One of the biggest lessons from Russia’s incursions into Ukraine — stemming from 2014 to its current invasion — is how units can be located and targeted with kinetic munitions solely based on their emissions within the electromagnetic spectrum.

In addition to efforts for units to reduce their overall signature, the Army is pursing technologies that will allow them to deceive the enemy and even hide in plain sight.

Top Army leadership has been harping on the notion that in the future, forces will be under constant observation with nowhere to hide — unlike past conflicts. This is due to the technologies possessed by sophisticated actors to track forces through airborne or satellite systems or digital means of detecting forces based on emissions.

In order for troops to be able to employ decoys, obfuscation techniques or even jamming, they must first understand what they look like within the spectrum.

One program the Army is making investments toward is called the Spectrum Situational Awareness System, or S2AS. It is envisioned to be a commercial off-the-shelf solution that will provide sensing and visualization of what units look like in the spectrum and allow commanders to be able to sense and report in real-time their command post signature, sources of electromagnetic interference — either from coalition partners or the enemy — and what threat emissions look like.

Officials noted it will be critical to allowing units to understand their own electronic footprint.  

A new start in fiscal 2025, the Army requested $9.3 million in research-and-development funds for integration, testing, and technical and program management support of the program. The documents project an anticipated contract award in the third quarter of 2025, with first unit integrated and fielding to the Army beginning in the second quarter of 2026.

Stanton noted there are promising technologies the Army is experimenting with at Project Convergence, which took place from early February to mid-March, in the way of decoys and obfuscation.

He did not mention any specific systems by name.

One system that was tested at Project Convergence was called MAGPIE, which can replicate Army assets — such as company to division level radio frequency signatures — to confuse and deceive enemy signal collection.

At Camp Pendelton, California, during the first phase of Project Convergence, the system was explained to DefenseScoop as being able to collect the signals and signature profile of a command post — or anything that emits — and copy it to rebroadcast as a decoy. A couple of the systems can be deployed to mimic a command post so the enemy doesn’t know exactly where the command post is or which one is the real command post.

The Army has also articulated its intention for a prototyping initiative dubbed the Modular Electromagnetic Spectrum System (MEMSS). This capability stemmed out of a prior science-and-technology effort called Modular Electromagnetic Spectrum Deception Suite (MEDS) and will be a new start in fiscal 2026, Army officials have said.

The effort is related to command post survivability and could employ techniques to confuse and deceive adversaries.

“It goes back to understanding how you look and are there ways to lower or raise noise levels to better hide in plain sight,” Brig. Gen. Wayne “Ed” Barker, program executive officer for intelligence, electronic warfare and sensors, told DefenseScoop in a December interview.

Officials explained that R&D for the effort is ongoing and there could be a range of options for what such a system could look like — from low-dollar disposable to an emulator to make it look like certain radio signals are emitting from a location to digitally replicate a command post. It could also be as small as a handheld device.

The program office is still making small investments to “hit the ground running in ’26,” Barker said. The funding lines are still a bit amorphous and officials believe these concepts could be achievable in the near term.

“It goes back to getting that kind of seed corn and being able to incubate ahead of that ’26 time frame for MEMSS,” Barker said.

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