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US Army Developing Encrypted Radar Waveform (thestack.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The U.S. army is working on an innovative technology for masking radar emissions in contested territory and environments with heavily congested radio bands. Effective radar system performance is critical in military operations, yet remains a challenge in locations under attack or in areas of high traffic density. Army researchers have now developed a noise-encrypted radar waveform called Advanced Pulse Compression Noise (APCN), which can be tuned in real-time to allow users to adjust radar performance depending on their surroundings. Research scientist, Mark Govoni explained: 'Having the ability to transmit a radar waveform that's continually changing, one that never repeats itself, and looks like noise, is extremely difficult to intercept....and remains anonymous to radar detectors.'
How can they mask the signal if a detector has a larger bandwidth? Part of your spectrum is going to have more energy, even if it is digitally smeared. However if they are also doing something tricky with multiple transmit locations and a random phase array effect a snooper can't even be sure what time period a section of the spectrum belongs in. So not only is your signal dancing around on different frequencies it is also dancing around in space and time so only the receivers with the correct key to track the random sequences can make use of the reflected signal off the targets. So yeah you could really encrypt a radar signal, but they didn't describe what I just did did they? :-)
Even the summary says that isn't going to happen.
What "masking radar emissions in contested territory" tells me is that they intend to change their newspeak so that they aren't technically in a war zone but rather in a contested territory. Clearly the Geneva convention doesn't apply to contested territories.
It worked perfectly well for the "illegal combatants". Just invent a new expression and no treaties or laws have direct references to them.
Well, at least they aren't even trying to mask the imperial mindset anymore. I wonder how long it takes before they start taking slaves.
I think this is, at best, an ignorant comment. While I think the US is excessive in their military presence around the world, sometimes it's justified and even welcome. Europe is definitely better off for the Americans entering into WWII. While we can debate whether nuclear weapons should have been used against Japan, there was ample reason to fight a war in the Pacific as well. China, an American ally, was under attack by Japan. In the present day, we provide military protection to Japan and South Korea. They are our allies and our presence is welcome. Japan and South Korea face a very real threat from North Korea. I suspect the technique described would have value in Japan and South Korea because of the high traffic density and, in the case of South Korea, hiding the radars from North Korea. Does the US abuse military intervention? Absolutely! But are there countries where the US military presence is welcome? Definitely! And would the technique have value in some of those countries? I'd bet it does. And besides, there's really no way to know where the US military might really be needed in the future.
Geneva convention only applies to the loser of a conflict. It's a tool used by the victor to do a little more damage, charge people with war crimes, etc. It doesn't apply to the victor even when they break/ignore them. Because of course there's the old argument when you tell them to stop: "Oh yeah, who is going to make me stop? You and which army?"
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.