Israel has recognized that the modern battlefield will not be entirely fought on air, sea, and space. To better prepare for new domains of warfare, Israel has developed a revolutionary weapon for electromagnetic warfare.
Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), the country’s top aerospace and aviation manufacturer, has developed the Scorpius family of systems that scans a sphere of the operating environment for targets and deploys a narrowly focused beam to interfere with multiple threats across the electromagnetic spectrum. The high-tech weapon is categorized under “soft protection” because it doesn’t cause physical harm. Instead, it disrupts the operation of electromagnetic systems, such as radar, electronic sensors, navigation, and data communications.
Gideon Fustick, Marketing VP EW Group at IAI, told Forbes, “We call it [Scorpius family of systems] ‘soft protection.’ It’s an offensive weapon that doesn’t send out missiles. It’s not a hard-kill system,” adding that “it is very effective in engaging and disabling enemy systems.”
Fustick describes the new weapon as having a tremendous advantage over legacy electromagnetic warfare weapons because it can shoot targeted beams without interfering with unintended targets. He called this a “revolution in warfare.”
“The enemy is trying to use the electromagnetic domain for all these activities,” he said. “We are also trying to use them. And we’re each trying to deny the other side from the use of the electromagnetic domain.” Planes, drones, missiles, and other weapons of war operate using electromagnetic magnetic sensors to navigate and communicate – by denying the enemy access to the electromagnetic domain. It can severely impair their warfare capability.
“It’s the first system that can really detect anything in the sky and address multiple targets in different directions and different frequencies simultaneously,” Fustick added, noting that previous electronic warfare technology was not able to engage multiple targets at once.
Fustick said the Scorpius has already been exported to “several prominent customers” as the race to dominate the electromagnetic warfare domain heats up.
