Air & Missile Defense

Counter-drone systems are becoming an essential part of military base protection, but knowing whether they will perform as expected during a real attack remains...

Long-endurance drones such as the MQ-9 Reaper have spent decades performing surveillance and strike missions, but the environment they were designed for is changing....

Space-based sensors can generate enormous amounts of data while monitoring missile launches, spacecraft and other fast-moving threats. The challenge is getting useful information to...

Stopping one drone is very different from defending against dozens or hundreds arriving together. A coordinated swarm can approach from several directions, divide into...

Missile-defense systems cannot be validated using simulations alone. Radars and combat-management systems ultimately need to encounter physical targets moving through real airspace, allowing crews...

Small commercial drones are increasingly becoming a security problem for military forces and critical facilities. Detecting an unauthorized UAV is only part of the...

Future air operations are expected to rely increasingly on uncrewed aircraft working alongside fighter jets, but making that concept practical requires more than simply...

As more military and civilian infrastructure depends on satellites, space is becoming an increasingly important operational domain. Communications, navigation, intelligence gathering, missile warning, and...

Protecting a major port from drones presents an increasingly difficult security problem. Maritime facilities cover large areas and contain ships, fuel infrastructure and other...

One-way attack drones have created an increasingly difficult equation for air-defense forces. Aircraft such as the Shahed-136 are relatively inexpensive, can be launched in...

Modern air-defense systems depend heavily on radar to determine which objects in the sky deserve attention. That creates an opportunity for deception: if a...

Modern battlefields are increasingly crowded with radio-frequency signals. Drones, aircraft, ships, communications equipment and electronic warfare systems all transmit across the electromagnetic spectrum, creating...

Air defense systems today must contend with a wide range of fundamentally different threats: ballistic missiles traveling at high speeds and altitudes, fighter aircraft,...

Modern armored vehicles are increasingly equipped with camouflage, thermal-management technologies and other measures intended to make them harder to identify and engage. At the...

Maritime surveillance requires military forces to monitor enormous areas while identifying ships, submarines and other potential threats as quickly as possible. Crewed patrol aircraft...

Inspecting pipelines, power lines and transportation corridors presents a difficult logistical problem. These assets can stretch for hundreds of kilometers through remote terrain, making...

Persistent surveillance is one of the biggest challenges in modern military operations. Conventional drones are limited by battery capacity or fuel, requiring frequent landings...

The rapid spread of military drones has created a growing problem for air-defense forces. Many attack drones are inexpensive to produce, yet they are...

Countering small drones has become increasingly difficult as unmanned aircraft grow smaller, cheaper, and more numerous. Traditional radar systems can detect many aerial threats,...

The growing use of small drones on the battlefield is creating new challenges for military forces. Detecting an incoming unmanned aircraft is only the...

Maritime surveillance often requires both surface vessels and aerial drones to maintain awareness over large areas. While drones provide a much wider field of...

Modern battlefields are saturated with electronic activity. Radars, jammers, drone control stations, communications systems, and other emitters constantly transmit radio-frequency signals that can reveal...