A QinetiQ Pilatus PC-21 aircraft inside an anechoic chamber at MoD Boscombe Down on 5 March 2019. (QinetiQ)
The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) is to build one of the largest specialist anechoic chambers (or ‘silent hangar') in Europe to test how well aircraft and other vehicles can withstand jamming and other electronic warfare (EW) threats.
A GBP20 million (USD26 million) contract has been awarded to QinetiQ to build a radio frequency, anti-jamming test facility at MoD Boscombe Down site in Wiltshire.
The chamber will be far larger than existing UK facilities, big enough to fit equipment including armoured vehicles, MQ-9B Protector unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), Chinook helicopters, and F-35 fighter jets.
The specialist hangar will be designed to reduce reflections, echoes, or the escape of radio frequency waves. The GPS (one of the networks of global navigation satellite services [GNSS]) simulators and threat emulators inside the chamber will allow for the replication of a number of hostile electromagnetic environments to test how well equipment can withstand jamming and other EW threats attempting to confuse or disrupt a system's instruments.
Minister for Defence Procurement and Industry Maria Eagle said the facility, due to open in 2026, would “help us eliminate vulnerabilities from our platforms”, with Richard Bloomfield, head of Electronic Warfare and Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear at the MoD's Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S), adding that the chamber will be “one of the most up-to-date and high-tech in the world, where hostile environments can be safely recreated to put military equipment, such as fighter jets and drones, through testing to understand their performance in challenging environments”.
For more information on jamming and its countermeasures, please seeSpecial Report: AI-powered UAVs offer the potential to outsmart jamming .
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