“Leonardo Launches Cutting-Edge Digital Tech to Transform Armed Forces’ Tactics Against Advanced Air Defenses”

Leonardo has unveiled an innovative offering, termed ‘BriteStorm’, which empowers armed services to maneuver deeply within adversary territory, even when that region is defended by cutting-edge Integrated Air Defence Systems (IADS).

BriteStorm possesses the capability for ‘stand-in jamming’: an aerial electronic warfare asset, deployed in advance of the primary force, to provide robust interference against a broad array of threats. This operation results in the degradation of the adversary’s IADS, diminishing its capacity to identify and lock onto additional platforms, safeguarding allied forces and facilitating their missions.

The BriteStorm payload is engineered to be mounted on an extensive range of UAVs and launched effects. It equips each platform with a sophisticated suite of digital deception strategies, deployable at considerable distances.

The UK Royal Air Force’s Rapid Capabilities Office (RCO) is collaborating with Leonardo regarding this capability and has acquired payloads for trial purposes. Successful test flights with the RCO validating the capability have already been conducted.

Conceived at Leonardo’s electronic warfare research and production facility in Luton, UK, BriteStorm leverages the Digital Radio Frequency Memory (DRFM) technology that underlies Leonardo’s operational BriteCloud countermeasure, the sole DRFM-based expendable available in the market proven effective in live tests. In contrast to BriteCloud, which disrupts incoming missile radar guidance systems, BriteStorm has been meticulously designed to confound and suppress ground-based surveillance radars, ensuring the enemy cannot track or target allied forces.

BriteStorm operates by employing Leonardo’s mission-proven DRFM technology to detect and analyze the electronic warfare threat landscape and subsequently selects the most pertinent countermeasure approach. Depending on the circumstances, BriteStorm’s impacts can vary from inundating the enemy system with electronic noise to advanced tactics such as generating numerous realistic ‘ghost’ fighter jet signatures, thereby bewildering and redirecting the adversary’s response.

BriteStorm is compact, lightweight, and agnostic to platforms. A typical BriteStorm configuration includes a platform-specific antenna, transmit-receive modules, and Leonardo’s Miniature Technique Generator. Its ease of integration renders BriteStorm an accessible means to establish a potent, attritable stand-in jamming capability. The BriteStorm development team has leveraged Leonardo’s comprehensive digital transformation initiative to craft a powerful yet refined product while ensuring the payload remains attritable.

Alongside the UK Ministry of Defence, Leonardo considers the U.S. Department of Defense a key potential client for BriteStorm, with the payload poised to provide a capability edge to operators in contested electronic warfare environments while being swiftly reprogrammable to adapt to evolving threats. BriteStorm has been designed for straightforward exportability, with demonstration units already positioned in the USA. Leonardo anticipates heightened interest in BriteStorm from clients across Europe, the Middle East, and the Asia Pacific region.