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The End of Federated Systems
For decades, military aircraft, ships, and land systems have been overloaded with a patchwork of dedicated sensors and antenna arrays. Each mission-specific system—radar dishes for targeting, electronic warfare (EW) arrays for jamming, SATCOM domes for communication, and SIGINT pods for interception—demanded its own physical aperture and processing backend. This federated architecture has long been the norm, but it comes at a steep cost.
An F/A-18 Super Hornet, for example, carries over 17 separate apertures, while a Zumwalt-class destroyer may field more than 80 antennas. These overlapping systems consume enormous amounts of space, weight, and power (SWaP), introduce electromagnetic interference that leads to nearly 30% mission downtime, and are trapped in rigid upgrade cycles that take five to seven years. The result is a highly capable but inflexible architecture, prone to obsolescence and integration headaches.
The solution now gaining momentum is the multimode sensor—a unified, software-defined, reconfigurable system that can seamlessly switch between radar, communications, EW, and signals intelligence. Built on open standards and powered by artificial intelligence, these sensors mark the most transformative leap in military electronics since the advent of phased arrays.
Technical Breakthroughs Enabling Convergence
At the core of multimode sensor technology lies a triad of innovations that enable convergence across the electromagnetic spectrum.
First, Gallium Nitride (GaN) and Silicon-Germanium (SiGe) front-ends have dramatically increased power density and efficiency, allowing systems to operate across wider frequency bands without hardware swaps. GaN amplifiers deliver up to 10 times the power density of older gallium arsenide-based components.
Second, software-defined backends powered by reconfigurable hardware such as Xilinx Versal FPGAs can process up to 1.8 terabits per second across 32 channels, making it possible to handle simultaneous radar tracking, communications relay, and electronic attack.
Third, meta-material surfaces with dynamically reconfigurable elements allow for beam shaping in real time. These surfaces can redirect signals for low-probability-of-intercept (LPI) communications or deliver tightly focused jamming beams without mechanical movement.
Compared to legacy federated systems, multimode sensors reduce aperture count by 85%, cut SWaP burden by 75%, and switch operational modes in microseconds instead of minutes. Perhaps most crucially, these systems leverage AI to deliver real-time cognitive threat response, dynamically adjusting sensor behavior based on changing mission conditions.
The Open Architecture Advantage
The shift from hardware-bound systems to agile, software-defined architectures has been made possible by the adoption of open standards such as the Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA) and the C5ISR/EW Modular Open Suite of Standards (CMOSS). These frameworks fundamentally decouple hardware from software, allowing military sensors to behave more like smartphones—capable of hosting modular, mission-specific applications that can be rapidly deployed, updated, or swapped without physical modification. This plug-and-play flexibility is revolutionizing how platforms evolve, enabling combat systems to adapt dynamically to changing threats and mission demands.
Through the use of containerized microservices and middleware, new capabilities—whether advanced radar waveforms, novel electronic warfare techniques, or encrypted communication protocols—can be uploaded over the air, even while the platform is deployed in contested environments. The U.S. Navy’s SPY-6 radar, for example, can shift from surveillance to electronic attack in just 47 milliseconds when it detects an incoming missile. Similarly, the F-35 fighter jet can now receive updated EW waveforms in under 20 minutes via remote transmission—a dramatic improvement over the traditional 18-month cycle for hardware-dependent upgrades.
This modular and interoperable approach also fosters a thriving innovation ecosystem. Companies like Raytheon are leading the charge with platforms like HARDSHIELD, which deliver “EW-as-a-service” capabilities—enabling warfighters to download and activate certified waveforms or sensing modes in real time, much like app store models in the commercial tech world. Just as importantly, open architectures reduce the risk of vendor lock-in by allowing third-party developers to build and certify mission apps, driving competition, accelerating upgrade timelines, and ensuring that tactical edge technologies can stay ahead of evolving threats.
Real-World Deployments Changing Combat
The transformative potential of multimode sensor technology is no longer theoretical—it’s already redefining operations on the front lines. One of the most prominent examples is the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which features the AN/APG-81 active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar. This single aperture simultaneously performs a wide range of critical functions: tracking up to 30 aerial targets at ranges exceeding 200 kilometers, jamming advanced air defense systems like the Russian S-400, and maintaining secure datalinks with allied platforms such as the F-22 Raptor. By unifying these functions into one integrated sensor array, the program has saved more than $4.3 million per aircraft in hardware costs alone—while also reducing weight, complexity, and electromagnetic interference risks.
The U.S. Navy’s DDG(X) next-generation destroyer program offers another compelling demonstration of the multimode paradigm. Instead of relying on a jungle of 42 independent antennas, the ship consolidates all major sensor functions into a single, integrated mast. This unified structure supports full-spectrum capability, including 360-degree L-band radar for long-range surveillance, X-band guidance for missile engagements, Ka-band SATCOM for global communications, and electronic support measures for threat detection and geolocation. The result is not only a cleaner electromagnetic profile and streamlined logistics but also a significant 14-metric-ton reduction in topside weight—enhancing maneuverability, stability, and survivability.
These real-world deployments illustrate the broader trend toward sensor convergence across domains. With fewer apertures and shared processing backends, platforms become more modular, easier to upgrade, and more capable of adapting to new missions on the fly. This shift improves readiness and extends service life, all while enhancing the tactical agility that modern multi-domain operations demand. As platforms like the F-35 and DDG(X) continue to set the benchmark, multimode sensors are poised to become the defining feature of 21st-century defense architectures.
The Multi-Domain Fusion Imperative
Today’s battlefields span both physical and digital dimensions, where the fusion of sensor capabilities has become essential to maintaining operational dominance. The growing complexity of modern warfare—ranging from cyberattacks to hypersonic threats—demands sensing architectures that can operate seamlessly across domains. Unified, multimode sensors are now the backbone of this transformation, allowing platforms to perceive, interpret, and act with unprecedented speed and precision.
Contemporary threats increasingly defy categorization. Russia’s Krasukha-4 system, for example, merges electronic warfare and cyberattack capabilities, reportedly injecting malware into adversary systems using radar beams—effectively weaponizing the electromagnetic spectrum. Meanwhile, the U.S. Space Development Agency’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture streams real-time targeting data from low Earth orbit to Army TITAN ground stations, enabling precision strike coordination across joint forces. At the heart of this integration are AI-driven systems like Lockheed Martin’s Athena, which autonomously manage over half a million spectrum decisions per second—dynamically prioritizing threats, allocating bandwidth, and orchestrating cross-domain countermeasures in real time.
This convergence of electronic warfare, SIGINT, radar, and communications into a single aperture isn’t simply an exercise in optimization—it is the foundation of true multi-domain fusion. It empowers platforms to sense and adapt faster than adversaries can react, collapsing decision loops and reshaping the tempo of conflict. As one senior USAF official put it: “Our F-15EX Eagles using EPAWSS detect missile launches via radar, geolocate SAM sites through SIGINT, and coordinate electronic countermeasures—all through one aperture cluster.” That kind of integrated capability is no longer futuristic—it’s operational reality.
Case Study: Northrop Grumman’s EMRIS – The Plug-and-Play Multimode Revolution
Redefining sensor integration through open architecture and commercial speed
Northrop Grumman’s Electronically Scanned Multifunction Reconfigurable Integrated Sensor (EMRIS) exemplifies the next evolutionary leap in sensor architecture. EMRIS is built on a foundation of three converging innovations. First, it inherits modular scalability from DARPA’s Arrays at Commercial Timescales (ACT) program, offering adaptive configurations across multiple platforms. Second, it integrates microelectronics sourced from the commercial 5G ecosystem, resulting in a 60% cost reduction when compared to traditional military-spec components. Third, EMRIS fully embraces the Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA), enabling real-time software-defined capability upgrades through containerized applications.
Between 2023 and 2024, EMRIS completed 48 successful test sorties aboard undisclosed government aircraft. These tests demonstrated simultaneous jamming of S-band threats while maintaining Ku-band SATCOM connectivity—capabilities typically requiring separate subsystems. In a striking example of agility, Northrop Grumman integrated the F-16’s IVEWS electronic warfare suite into EMRIS in just 11 days, a timeline that under conventional approaches would have stretched to 18 months. The system’s physical versatility was also proven through both nose-mounted and conformal skin configurations, confirming its adaptability for various aircraft geometries.
Technically, EMRIS operates across a confirmed frequency range from VHF to Ka-band, allowing a single aperture to handle radar, EW, and communication duties. With sub-50 millisecond reconfiguration speeds, the sensor can outpace adversary radar scan cycles and rapidly adjust to emerging threats. Compared to legacy federated systems, EMRIS delivers a 40% reduction in size, weight, and power (SWaP), making it suitable even for compact Group 3 UAVs. Its containerized software architecture enabled the rapid integration of the BACN communications protocol within 72 hours, showcasing extraordinary agility in fielding new capabilities.
The system’s digital active electronically scanned array (AESA) core allows it to function as multiple subsystems without redesign. In a single test sequence, EMRIS was able to track airborne targets in radar mode, geolocate surface-to-air missile sites via electronic support measures (ESM), and relay targeting data using BACN—all through the same aperture array. Software updates alone enabled AESA radar functions on existing F-16 platforms, demonstrating how legacy aircraft can be transformed into modern sensor nodes without expensive hardware overhauls.
The deployment roadmap for EMRIS is equally ambitious. Near-term plans for 2025 include retrofitting F-16V fighters to replace APG-83 radars and integrating the system into MQ-20 Avenger drones. By 2027, Northrop Grumman expects EMRIS to be adopted as a replacement for the E-7 Wedgetail’s MESA array and as a consolidated mast solution for the DDG(X) naval platform. Looking to 2030 and beyond, EMRIS is positioned to evolve into a cloud-managed “sensor-as-a-service” model, complete with quantum-enabled spectrum agility and dynamic spectrum hopping for highly contested environments.
From a strategic standpoint, EMRIS delivers a triple payoff. First, Northrop Grumman’s internal analysis suggests a 70% reduction in lifetime upgrade costs due to its software-first architecture. Second, EMRIS allows platforms to morph roles mid-mission—an F-16 could, for example, shift from providing AWACS-like coverage to serving as a strike escort via onboard ECM, all without landing or reconfiguration. As Krys Moen, Vice President of Advanced Missions at Northrop Grumman, explains, this adaptability redefines tactical surprise. Finally, EMRIS disrupts adversary planning by presenting a fluid, uncertain electronic order of battle. Without clear cues on capability loadouts, enemy forces struggle to assess vulnerabilities, giving EMRIS-equipped forces a potent deterrence advantage.
EMRIS also underscores why speed and openness now matter more than ever. Leveraging commercial 5G supply chains allows Northrop Grumman to develop and iterate EMRIS on 24-month cycles, compared to the traditional seven-year timelines typical for defense systems. Its hardware-agnostic design scales from 12-inch pods suitable for MQ-9-sized drones to 8-foot arrays for B-21 bombers, bringing multimode sensing to virtually any platform. With onboard AI containers enabling adaptive electronic warfare and real-time decision-making, EMRIS is not just a sensor—it’s an intelligent combat system, tuned for the battlespace of tomorrow.
The Road to Cognitive Sensing
As the multimode sensor revolution matures, the next frontier lies not simply in multifunctionality but in intelligence—systems that not only perceive but interpret, predict, and autonomously adapt to dynamic threat environments. This cognitive shift marks a profound evolution in sensing philosophy, moving from reactive tools to anticipatory warfighting enablers.
By 2025, DARPA’s CONCERTO (CONverged Collaborative Elements for RF Task Operations) program is set to demonstrate autonomous spectrum collaboration across more than 50 networked platforms. These distributed sensor nodes will share data, manage interference, and coordinate responses without human intervention, forming the basis for resilient, self-organizing sensor constellations in the air, at sea, and in space.
The evolution accelerates further by 2030 with advanced programs like BAE Systems’ QUINT, which seeks to converge quantum radar, electronic warfare, and secure communications into a single aperture system. QUINT will harness quantum signal processing and holographic beamforming to guide satellites, aircraft, and hypersonic weapons through contested, GPS-denied environments—delivering resilience and stealth through physics itself.
Looking to 2035 and beyond, the emergence of neuromorphic processors promises a new class of “self-aware” sensors. These architectures, modeled on the human brain, will enable real-time threat anticipation, autonomously identifying electronic vulnerabilities before they are exploited. Operating in sub-nanosecond timeframes, these cognitive arrays won’t just react—they’ll predict the unfolding battlespace, giving warfighters a decisive edge in spectrum-dominated conflict.
Strategic Implications
The rise of multimode sensors represents more than just an upgrade in technology—it heralds a fundamental shift in the strategic calculus of modern warfare. These systems are redefining the way military forces acquire, process, and act on information across domains, delivering three transformative advantages.
First, the cost efficiencies are profound. Unlike traditional systems that require hardware overhauls every few years, multimode architectures rely on continuous software upgrades. This approach reduces lifecycle costs by up to 60%, enabling forces to stay technologically current without the logistical burden of physical retrofits. These savings allow militaries to redirect budgets toward mission expansion, force readiness, or R&D acceleration.
Second, multimode sensors dramatically enhance tactical agility. With open architectures and containerized applications, mission configurations can now be updated in hours instead of months. This rapid adaptability empowers commanders to tailor sensor payloads to evolving threats on the fly—whether that means pivoting from electronic warfare to ballistic missile defense or switching from long-range ISR to short-range strike support during a single sortie.
Third, and perhaps most strategically significant, is the concept of deterrence through complexity. Software-defined apertures allow capabilities to be masked or reconfigured without external visibility, making it difficult for adversaries to assess a platform’s true function or threat potential. This ambiguity adds friction to enemy targeting strategies and creates uncertainty in their operational planning—a powerful asymmetric advantage.
As General Glen VanHerck, Commander of U.S. Northern Command, aptly stated: “Our over-the-horizon radars now serve as EW sentinels and hypersonic comm relays. This convergence is our asymmetric advantage against pacing threats.” His words reflect a growing consensus among defense leaders: the future belongs to those who can unify sensing, outpace decision loops, and project power through invisible complexity.
Footnotes:
[1] DoD Open Systems Architecture Contract Guidebook 2023
[2] SOSA Consortium Technical Standard 3.0
[3] Raytheon HARDSHIELD Case Study (2025)
[4] Naval Power Magazine: DDG(X) Topside Analysis (Jan 2025)[1] DARPA ACT Program Final Report (2022)
[5] NG EMRIS Flight Test Whitepaper (Jan 2024)
[6] DoD MOSA Mandate Directive 5000.89
