Responsive communications jamming against radio-controlled improvised explosive devices

Responsive communications jamming is an emerging technology for electronic-warfare applications. In contrast to state-of-the-art barrage jammers, which continuously jam entire frequency bands irrespective of current signal activities, responsive jammers regularly perform wideband scans of the radio spectrum and are thus able to react to observed signals. By this means, the available transmit energy can be focused on currently relevant spectral areas, which potentially leads to significantly improved jamming efficiencies. In this article, we provide a tutorial overview of this jamming technology with focus on vehicle- or convoy-protection jamming against radio-controlled improvised explosive devices (RCIEDs). Bringing in experience from our product development as well as from theoretical studies, we discuss various system design aspects of responsive anti-RCIED jammers and point out the main technological challenges. In particular, the issues of jam-duration optimization and time synchronization of multiple responsive jammers are discussed in some detail.