Hypersonic weapons force a rethinking of electronic warfare from the sensor up. At Mach 5 and above, in the dense lower thermosphere and upper atmosphere, hypersonic boost-glide vehicles and air-breathing missiles create plasma, radiate strong infrared signatures, and fly long, maneuverable trajectories that compress the engagement window. That combination breaks many of the simplifying assumptions that underpin legacy EW and integrated air defense. My review looks at the observable countermeasures being developed to defeat hypersonics, their EW-relevant tradeoffs, and the practical gaps that remain.
Detection and tracking: the sensor layer is the first EW frontier. Persistent, multi-domain sensing is the pragmatic response to hypersonic maneuver and short time-to-target. Space-based infrared and wide-area tracking constellations have moved from concept to on-orbit prototypes; the MDA and SDA launched HBTSS and Tranche 0 tracking demonstrators to test the basic building blocks of a tracking layer that can provide cueing and, eventually, fire-control quality data. Those prototypes show that a distributed space layer can materially shorten detection gaps that hypersonics exploit, but the sensors are still in test and maturation phases. Space sensors will not remove the need for airborne and ground sensors that provide different spectral and geometric perspectives.
Why we need multi-spectral fusion: hypersonic vehicles produce complex signatures. Their condensed shock layers and ablative surfaces generate strong mid-wave and long-wave IR emissions, while the surrounding ionized gas can severely distort or attenuate microwave reflections. Plasma effects are not just an engineering nuisance; they alter scattering, introduce intra-pulse Doppler coupling, and can defocus high-resolution radar imagery. Recent remote-sensing works quantify these effects and outline algorithmic mitigation strategies such as adaptive focusing, frequency selection, and model-based compensation. In practice, a layered approach that fuses space IR, airborne IRST, long-wave radar, and passive RF/optical cues gives the best chance to track a maneuvering hypersonic object long enough for downstream engagement or soft-kill measures.
Soft-kill EW: jamming, deception, and HPM. Traditional electronic attack against homing seekers can in principle be applied to the terminal phase if the incoming weapon relies on RF or imaging sensors that are accessible. However, several realities limit simple assumptions. First, many hypersonic designs emphasize passive or infrared terminal seekers or heavily shielded electronics to survive thermal and plasma environments. Second, the engagement geometry and very short dwell times compress the window for effective spoofing. Where EW is promising is in area-layered soft-kill approaches: wide-area RF degraders to deny datalinks and GPS, high-powered microwave (HPM) bursts intended to upset onboard avionics, and directed RF techniques to force predictable behavioral responses that make the weapon trackable by other sensors. HPM and related non-kinetic concepts have been proposed as a form of modern flak to create an environment hostile to electronics, and small-scale programs and demonstrations have advanced HPM fielding for counter-UAS and local-area defense. Those systems are maturing, but their application against hardened, thermally protected hypersonic guidance electronics is an open research question.
Directed energy: promise and physical limits. High energy lasers and pulsed laser concepts attract attention because they engage at light speed and produce no magazine limit in principle. Directed energy is attractive against hypersonics for two reasons: it can deliver effects without a physical interceptor and it can exploit the long, thin glide profiles where the geometry may be favorable. But the physical realities are severe. Thermal protection, ablative nosecones, beam propagation through turbulent and ionized atmospheres, and the very short dwell time needed to deposit destructive energy together push required laser power and beam control into the high hundreds of kilowatts to multi-megawatt class for many realistic scenarios. Recent DoD roadmaps and program literature acknowledge planned scaling of laser power toward larger weapon classes, while SBIR and other research efforts are explicitly modeling lethality mechanisms for pulsed lasers against hypersonic conditions. Directed energy will be an important tool in a layered defeat architecture, but it is not a drop-in solution today.
Radar and algorithmic countermeasures. Upgraded ground and ship radars with GaN arrays and advanced processors are being fielded to increase sensitivity and discrimination in cluttered, contested spectrums. The recent modernization of high-performance X/Ku/Ka band radars pushes more aperture and better anti-jam software into the fight, and algorithmic work on plasma-coupled echoes shows paths to restore coherent tracking despite ionization-induced distortion. Multi-static radar networks, adaptive waveform schemes, and machine-learning-based feature extraction are visible, practical countermeasures that can be fielded in the near term to improve detect-to-engage timelines. The key here is not a single radar but distributed, heterogeneous radars plus fast fusion across domains.
Operational concepts: channeling, area denial, and preferential defense. Several policy and technical reviews argue that defeating hypersonic strikes is not purely an intercept problem. Concepts such as channeling the threat into predictable corridors, hardening or distributing critical assets, and using area-effect soft-kill layers to increase interceptor windows are all viable means to blunt the operational effect of hypersonics. The EW role is to increase uncertainty for the attacker: deny reliable navigation and comms, create contested RF and EM environments with HPM and jamming, and cue multi-domain shooters rather than attempt single-shot miracle intercepts. These ideas have appeared in multiple analytical products and should guide procurement toward systems that are resilient and composable rather than monolithic silver bullets.
Gaps and research priorities. From an EW research perspective the highest priority technical threads are:
- Plasma-resilient sensing: better physics-based models, validated testbeds, and deconvolution algorithms to recover target kinematics during ionized flight. MDPI and related remote-sensing literature outline concrete methods to compensate for plasma-induced phase and amplitude errors, but more validation with flight-representative data is needed.
- Hardening and scalable HPM doctrine: field experiments to measure the susceptibility of hypersonic guidance avionics to realistic HPM waveforms and establishing rules of engagement and collateral mitigation for using area HPM against incoming threats. Industry prototypes are moving to demonstrations, but operational effectiveness against hardened hypersonic systems remains an unresolved empirical question.
- Directed-energy lethality models: better coupled aero-thermo-chemo-optical simulations plus machine-learned surrogates to predict how laser or pulsed optical energy couples to ablative materials and electronics under real atmospheric conditions. Recent SBIRs and academic work are funding exactly these modeling needs.
- Networked multi-domain testbeds: integrated exercises with space sensors, airborne ISR, naval and ground radars, HPM, lasers, and kinetic interceptors to assess layered kill chains instead of isolated capability tests. The ongoing HBTSS and Tranche 0 activities are a start but full operational testbeds are required.
Bottom line. Electronic warfare will not by itself give us a simple counter to hypersonic weapons, but EW is central to any credible layered defense. The trajectory from concept to capability is clear: combine distributed, multi-spectral sensing with algorithmic mitigation of plasma effects, add scalable area-level soft-kill tools such as HPM and targeted jamming, and invest in directed energy where physics and power generation make sense. Policymakers and technologists should budget for integrated testbeds, prioritize physics-based modeling, and accept that a portfolio approach will be the only tractable path to reducing the strategic surprise and operational shock that hypersonic weapons introduce.