Predator Drones Can Now Jam Enemy Radar and Launch 'Electronic Attacks'

The US military’s Predator drones will soon be able to jam enemy radars and be able to launch other electronic attacks, according to General Atomics, the drone’s manufacturer.

Earlier this month, the company demonstrated the drone’s “Electronic Attack capability” at the Marine Corps’s Weapons and Tactics Instructor course in Yuma, Arizona. "Electronic attack" is a pretty vague term, but it seems the Predator's electronic capabilities will mainly be used to jam enemy radar and targeting systems.

The Predator B, also known as the Reaper, is General Atomics’ flagship drone, the one that is most commonly used in strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, Afghanistan, and other countries. Kimberly Kasitz, a spokesperson for General Atomics, said that during the demonstration, the Predator B was outfitted with a “jamming pod.” The company is still waiting to hear back from the Marine Corps on the effectiveness of the demonstration. Kasitz said the company will again demonstrate the technology “and also explore other novel uses for Predator B” in April.

Peter W. Singer, director of Brookings’ Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence, told Motherboard that it’s “an important development because it’s a powerful new capability allowing [the Predator] to take on a wider set of missions,” but added that it’s unlikely to be a major game changer in practice.

“At the end of the day, you’re simply talking about a payload change,” he said. “When the F-18 went went to the EA-18 Growler electronic warfare version, it wasn’t a huge deal. I don’t want to make it seem like this is necessarily the next big thing.”

Some in the military have questioned the usefulness of radar jamming—and from the sounds of it, that’s what this technology can primarily be used for—in the country’s current conflicts. Current drones are, compared to fighter jets, much slower and and are much easier to be shot down. They’re useful in places like Afghanistan and Pakistan, where there are very few anti-aircraft defenses, but wouldn’t be nearly as useful in contested airspace.

“The question for the Predator B here and its electronic warfare capability is that it’s something that is only useful in fairly benign airspace,” Singer said.

But this could be a move by General Atomics to demonstrate the capabilities of electronic warfare systems on drones, which could then be added to more sophisticated drones in the future. The military has also found electronic warfare to be useful in Iraq and Afghanistan, despite the comparatively rudimentary military technology insurgents there have used.

“Guess what, even in Afghanistan, we made huge use of electronic warfare planes. They were using them for counter IED work and things like that,” Singer said. “It’s way more cost efficient to do this with a drone.”

Recently, General Atomics has gotten into the business of exporting its Predator technology. General Atomics won a nearly $200 million deal to sell an unarmed, “Predator XP” to the United Arab Emirates and is also exploring contracts with South American allies. Kasitz said the company “does not believe this level of technology would be exportable,” but that the U.S. government would ultimately decide whether electronic attack payloads could be put on Predator XP drones.