Keysight Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: KEYS), a leading technology company that helps enterprises, service providers and governments accelerate innovation to connect and secure the world, announced new electronic warfare (EW) threat simulation solutions, including software and hardware, that generate modern EW radio frequency (RF) environments to enable engineers to easily and efficiently test their EW systems.

The use of the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS) by the defense industry, which includes radar at RF, microwave and millimeter wave frequencies, continues to advance, exposing military personnel and assets to potential threats. EW systems need to anticipate adversary threats and generate countermeasures in this challenging environment. As a result, threat simulation technologies must be able to replicate realistic EMS environments to validate EW system capabilities and identify potential risks.

To address a growing range of threats, Keysight is introducing two commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) products:
  • Simulation View software which enables the rapid development, integration and test of sophisticated EW systems with real-time RF modeling and dynamic high-fidelity visualization.
  • UXG Agile Vector Adapter, now available in 20 GHz, 40 GHz and 44 GHz versions, which combines fast frequency, phase and amplitude, and time delay switching speeds with real-time pulse descriptor word (PDW) streaming. PDW is the data used for creating radar signals.

The combination of Keysight’s COTS products provides customers with metrology-grade testing capabilities to deliver high quality repeatable results, while reducing lead time and costs. Keysight’s products, and the support of open interfaces and architecture, offers customers EW threat simulation solutions ranging from single bench top testing to full scale threat simulator. Scalability, coupled with the ability to reconfigure the system to utilize RF test assets effectively, delivers a modernized EW test and evaluation solution.

“Keysight understands that our customers need solutions that can maintain pace with the accelerating evolution of the EW threat environment,” said Greg Patschke, general manager of Keysight’s Information Warfare Group. “We will continue to partner with our customers to create and deliver rapidly adaptable solutions that help them advance their labs to the next level of testing.”

The open architecture of Keysight’s EW threat simulation solutions enables customers to create scenarios with a variety of software tools, often utilizing a customer’s existing threat databases.  Customers can also choose the software tool that best fits their EW test needs for pre-scripted or dynamic real-time threat generation, or both. 

Keysight’s electronic warfare threat simulation solutions deliver the following customer benefits:
  • Reduced lead time and costs by utilizing COTS technology
  • Decreased potential for user error with automated threat simulator calibration
  • Highly reliable interchangeable parts, which simplify repair with no tuning/matching of components or modules
  • Commercial upgrade path, and ability to remain up-to-date with firmware and software enhancements to utilize assets as threats continue to evolve
  • 1,3,5,10-year warranty and cost-effective support and repair