May 25, 2021
Hardened Target Pod: The Air Force's Reaper Drone Just Got Harder to Jam
This kind of anti-jamming technology, which was demonstrated at the Air Force’s recent Northern Edge wargame in Alaska, could be extremely significant to a platform such as the Reaper, which the Air Force continues to transition into a great power warfare environment.
by Kris Osborn
The Air Force is arming its MQ-9 Reaper drone with new technologies to “counter” enemy countermeasures by enabling its sensors, electronics, and weapons to sustain functionality even in the event that an enemy attempts to hack, “jam” or disrupt its systems.
It’s called a “hardened targeting pod,” a technology with what an Air Force report calls an “electro-optical counter-countermeasure.” While many of the technical parameters central to the technology were not mentioned in the Air Force report, likely for security reasons, it was identified as a system that gives the MQ-9 Reaper an ability to find and detect threats in order to thwart jamming attempts or enemy electronic warfare (EW) attacks.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/hardened-target-pod-air-forces-reaper-drone-just-got-harder-jam-186024
