Nearly 600 industry and government leaders in electronic warfare gathered for the 51^st Collaborative Electronic Warfare Symposium at Naval Base Ventura County, Point Mugu, California, March 12-14.

The annual symposium, jointly hosted by Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division and the Association of Old Crows under a co-sponsorship agreement, focuses on collaboration and innovation in the world of electronic warfare and brings together government and industry partners from across the country.

This year’s symposium theme was “EW at Scale – EW Capabilities for Near Peer Force-on-Force Warfighting.” Symposium Chair Thomas Bluhm, NAWCWD’s Jammer Technique Optimization Group site lead and lead event planner for the symposium, challenged presenters to tackle how to scale up and get the most out of existing electronic warfare capabilities while simultaneously getting ahead of the curve in new system development.

Cross-service and industry collaboration support the National Defense Strategy’s integrated deterrence concept, which weaves together cutting-edge capabilities, operational concepts, and the comparative advantage of our partnerships to dissuade and deter aggression in any domain. That drive to collaborate was clear in the symposium’s agenda.

EW and acquisition leaders from the U.S. Navy, Army, industry and academia addressed the changing character of war and warfighting needs and what industry and service leaders can do to partner. Presentations and discussions covered topics that ranged from artificial intelligence applications to swarming technology and modular design concepts. Technology and technique, redesign and reimagining the future were the name of the game.

Holding the symposium at Point Mugu is especially meaningful to the Navy’s planners and contributors; the service’s electronic warfare capability was born at Point Mugu in 1951.

“For more than 70 years, we have been working to maintain a decisive warfighting advantage in the electromagnetic spectrum for our nation’s armed forces,” said Gerardo Garcia, NAWCWD’s Spectrum Warfare Department director. “Current conflicts are demonstrating just how important spectrum dominance is as technology continues to advance at an incredible pace. Figuring out how to share across services, maximizing interoperability, and leveraging skillsets and assets across the board is critical to our success as a nation.”