EuroDASS, the consortium responsible for the Eurofighter Typhoon’s Praetorian defensive suite, unveiled details on the next generation of Typhoon sensing and jamming capabilities on 20 November 2024 following the completion of concept work and technology flight trials.
Drawing on Europe’s sovereign electronic warfare (EW) expertise, the EuroDASS partners – Leonardo (in the UK), ELT Group (in Italy), Indra (in Spain) and Hensoldt (in Germany) – are working with systems integrator BAE Systems to develop the system in support of its Typhoon Next Generation initiative.
The Typhoon’s next-generation EW system will be designed to future-proof the aircraft against new and emerging threats through to 2060 and beyond, providing improved situational awareness and increased survivability. Key features of the system, according to EuroDASS, will include advanced complex threat characterisation, digital radio frequency memory (DRFM) capabilities and the provision of interfaces for an external, high-powered electronic attack pod for suppression of enemy air defence (SEAD) missions: a key NATO requirement. Wideband active electronically scanned-array (AESA) electronic countermeasures (ECM) will also be provided with increased power for self-protection.
The new system will be a form-fit retrofit option for the Typhoon’s in-service Defensive Aids Sub-System (DASS), which is named Praetorian after the elite unit of Roman bodyguards. It will have no impact on the outer mould line of the aircraft and impose no restrictions on the current flight envelope. This minimises aircraft clearance issues and ensures ease of integration for new-build aircraft as well as retrofits to existing platforms.
The Typhoon will thus “be more capable, more survivable and more available, meeting the operational needs of air forces across Europe and the Middle East for decades to come”, according to EuroDASS.
The consortium has already completed substantial development work on the next-generation EW system, including the ‘Praetorian eVolution’ concepting phase and flight trials of component parts of the new capability. Following concept finalisation, trials in 2023 saw digital receiver and band extension technologies flown on a test aircraft. Then, in 2024, flight trials on board a Typhoon were executed successfully. As well as maturing the capabilities, the partners were able to gather substantial data on representative threat scenarios to support further development.
Because threats to combat aircraft are expected to rapidly evolve in the decades to come, the Typhoon’s new defensive capabilities are being designed with a data-centric architecture at their core. This includes the provision of high-speed, high-bandwidth infrastructure to transmit raw signal data to an advanced central processing hub, enabling pilots to identify and prioritise multiple complex threats at once and at greater ranges.
Cognitive electronic warfare (CEW), using artificial intelligence and machine learning will exploit the high-fidelity data captured and respond to new threats as they emerge.
The in-service Praetorian system has protected the Typhoon for more than 30 years from threats including infra-red/heat-seeking and radar-guided missiles. Under the ongoing Eurofighter four-nation Phase 4 Enhancement (P4E) package, this system is being upgraded to make the most of its integration with Typhoon’s AESA radar options, including the in-service European Common Radar System (ECRS).
