Defense technology startup Anduril has recently unveiled its groundbreaking Pulsar product family — a modular electromagnetic warfare (EW) system powered by artificial intelligence (AI), as revealed in a press statement.
In today's rapidly evolving landscape of modern warfare, characterized by advancements in drone technologies and electronic warfare tactics, the statement read, maintaining dominance in the electromagnetic spectrum is paramount.
"As the war in Ukraine has shown, EW tactics are evolving faster than ever — a cat and mouse game of sensing and dodging, disruption and adaptation, in the spectrum — with updates to EW and threat systems now happening over shorter timelines of weeks, days, or even hours,” it said.
Described as a first-of-its-kind family, Pulsar is positioned by Anduril as a multi-mission-capable EW system that leverages AI at the tactical edge to swiftly identify and neutralize current and future threats across the electromagnetic spectrum, including small and medium-sized drones.
Saying that the next generation of EW systems “must enable real-time understanding of the spectrum, and provide rapid delivery of effective countermeasures against known and new threats, across domains and modalities,” the press release added: “That is precisely what Pulsar does.”
Pulsar combines a software-defined radio, graphics processing unit, and various computing elements into a compact and potent unit, empowering radio frequency machine learning (RFML) for swift detection and adjustment to emerging threats at the edge. This versatile system serves as a multi-purpose EW solution, encompassing electronic countermeasures, counter-unmanned systems, electronic support, electronic attack, direction finding, geolocation, and other advanced EW functions. Its adaptable modular design allows integration onto ground vehicles (Pulsar-V) or aircraft (Pulsar-A), facilitating distributed EW operations across diverse domains.
Sam El-Akkad, General Manager of RF/EW Systems at Anduril said that they have been developing the Pulsar family of systems “to support operational deployments worldwide, including to combat zones, since 2020."
“Built to survive and win in highly-congested and contested electromagnetic environments, Pulsar enables warfighters to counter state and non-state actors employing EW capabilities integrated with other advanced technological systems operating across the electromagnetic spectrum and cyberspace domain,” El-Akkad was quoted as saying by the company statement.
