Disruptive EMSO: A Key to Mission Success

In discussions of electromagnetic warfare, experts and enthusiasts often discuss the lethal and destructive capabilities of the technology. But effective disruption is a key element to mission success, and today’s guest is at the forefront of conversations on agility and cost effectiveness in the EW space.

But first, host Ken Miller welcomes John Knowles, Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Electromagnetic Dominance (JED), AOC’s official monthly publication. Ken and John wrap up AOC 2025 by sharing highlights of the week’s keynote speakers and sessions. 

Then, Ken speaks with Disruptive EW Machines CEO David Coyle about the role of EW disruption in operation success and making sure warfighters are as agile and adaptive as possible.

Coyle says his company can deploy systems at a fraction of the cost of other legacy systems, reflecting a larger push from the Department of War to quickly deploy agile, adaptive systems. Coyle says this approach reflects the reality of modern electromagnetic warfare, which requires warfighters to rapidly build and train tactics against newer, more complex unidentified threats.

To learn more about today’s topics or to stay updated on EMSO and EW developments, visit our homepage.

Creators and Guests

Host

Ken Miller

AOC Director of Advocacy & Outreach, Host of @AOCrows From the Crows' Nest Podcast

DC

Guest

David Coyle

IB

Editor

Ish Balderas-Wong

JK

Guest

John Knowles

Producer

Laura Krebs

TH

Producer

Trevor Hook

What is From the Crows' Nest?

Featuring interviews, analysis, and discussions covering leading issues of the day related to electromagnetic spectrum operations (EMSO). Topics include current events and news worldwide, US Congress and the annual defense budget, and military news from the US and allied countries. We also bring you closer to Association of Old Crow events and provide a forum to dive deeper into policy issues impacting our community.

David Coyle (00:00)
We've created a wide open system that allows the user on the ground to be able to then program it to be whatever the thread of the day is. It's just totally different from what we've really seen out there available for training or even operations.

Ken Miller (00:26)
Welcome to From the Crows' Nest. I'm your host, Ken Miller from the Association of Old Crows. And welcome back. It's great to be with you for our final episode of 2025. Of course, we were on site last week for AOC 2025 at the Gaylord Resort in National Harbor, Maryland. It was a great event. We brought you new episodes each day of the event. So if you have not had a chance to listen to all of them, please take some time to do so. We had some great conversations with keynote speakers,

other speakers, guests, award winners. It was really great to see the community come together, discuss a lot of really big topics that are designed to guide EW over the next 10 years and get that technology we need into the hands of the warfighters. So was a great show and really hope that you enjoy the podcast episodes that we brought to you throughout the week. For today, in our final episode of 2025, I am pleased to be joined first of all by John Knowles, who is the editor in chief of the Journal of Electromagnetic Dominance.

AOC's monthly publication, the JED. John and I sat down each day of the convention to talk about the messages we were hearing and what questions we needed to ask in throughout each of the sessions. So I wanted to sit down with him one last time to kind of wrap up everything and put a bow on AOC 2025. So we take care of that. And then following my interview with John, I am pleased to be with David Coyle. He is the Chief Executive Officer of Disruptive EW Machines.

He is a 20 year veteran of the US Air Force. He's got a lot of expertise in intelligence operations, electronic warfare, fifth generation fighter systems. And he brings all that together for this new project to talk about disruptive EW machines, DEWM, and how they can change the way that we think about fighting in the spectrum with the focus on agile, cost effective EW. So with that, let's get started. And I'd like to welcome my first guest, John Knowles.

editor in chief of the journal electromagnetic dominance. John, thanks for joining me here on from the crow's nest. It's great to have you on the show again.

John Knowles (02:31)
Sure. Thanks for having me out again. Yeah, it was a great week last week. think we really had a fantastic conversation. always think of it like when we get together every time for other AOC Europe, AOC 2025. I think of it as like, what's in the conversation? What are we talking about? And this one really opened up with dot mill PF, PFP really. so just thinking big and how interrelated are those things.

⁓ Obviously, you and I are sitting right now on an exhibit hall floor and there's a lot of technology around us. So we obviously think a lot about materiel, but we really need to think about all of it. We need to get the government and military leaders to think about all of it. And that's, think, been emphasized by the keynotes and in several of the sessions, think about the way that these work together in acquisition, the way that they work together in...

in personnel development, leadership, organizations, and organizing those organizations, because we do actually have a lot of organizations. They just happen to be broken up across a lot of places, and we need to get those stitched together a lot better.

Ken Miller (03:36)
You know, when you talk about strategic vision, ⁓ you you want to look into the future, kind of see where you're going, whether you're business, military, whatever. You want to think big picture, and you want to create a pathway to that vision based on your current capabilities. What was interesting is each day when we went to that strategic level, it didn't take long for the cohesion between what we wanted, what we need, and what we can do today started to fall apart a little bit. ⁓

from Lori, know, she mentioned, Lori Bacal, she mentioned, you know, we're still struggling with leadership. At Congress and Don Bacon, there's a bit of an imbalance between requirements and funding and authorities. We had, you know, General Stanton here, you know, he's leading innovation with EMBM. There's a lot of opportunities out there, but there's not a lot of cohesion in terms of here's what we need to do each step along the way to get to that vision.

John Knowles (04:31)
Yeah, think so. I Lori on her first day really hit on the head like without leaders, know, the way she said something in the Q &A is which is like instead of dot mill PF, I'd like to put the L first. And I think that was a, you know, interesting way to think it. I always think of that. I think a dot mill PF is sort of a

Those letters are variables in an equation, and you can balance them, and they need to work together. And when we get into a conflict, we start thinking dot mil pf, but the problem is that's kind of late. Especially some of the skill sets you need and the number of people that you need with those skill sets, that has to be developed long before. It takes a long time to develop an EW operator, skilled one.

And so we're not going to be able to automate all of that. EMBM is going to be a hugely important tool, but there's going to be humans making decisions behind that that are going to really count. The things that really count.

Ken Miller (05:21)
And you've said in the past, you know, we've had an overreliance on the material piece and it's we we do have to when we're talking dot mil pf the idea isn't we have to deal with each piece but we have to deal with each piece simultaneously because you cannot affect leadership training other aspects of dot mil pf

You cannot address those needs without doing other needs across that chain. You can't just focus on material. You just can't even focus on leadership. You know, it's interesting, yesterday we did a live show on the stage and the question was, is it time to establish an EMSO force? And one of the questions, of course, was, you know, we need leaders in DOD and the military to have authority and resources. And one of my panelists, a retired US Air Force Lieutenant General, Kevin Kennedy, who's now with ManTech, he mentioned, he's like, hey, I had...

the authority, but that doesn't mean I had the resources. And so when we think about those pieces, it's not just we need a leader, a single belly button, we need a cadre of leaders that can bring together the right funding in different areas, the right authorizations in different areas. There's not a magic.

John Knowles (06:24)
Yeah, there's not. You have to build all of it together. And again, the more I think about it, the more I just keep asking those questions of, what would we do better with an EMS force and what wouldn't we do as well today? And if you sit in an currently in an armed service, Army, Navy, Air Force, all you see is is is your equities getting taken away from you. ⁓

But at the same time, you may not see that my training is going to be better because I'm going to be training with somebody who, you know, when I go to my exercises, there's going to be a red team out there and they're going to rip me apart if I don't have my act together in the spectrum. You know, if I'm reprogramming, which was very, you know, reduplicative certainly in the United States, ⁓ you know, most countries have a single reprogramming center. We haven't solved that yet. We have to serve, each service tends to have its own.

reprogramming center, which isn't just inefficient. You're actually going to in the tempo of battle, you're going to lose, you know, time, you're going to do some of things. Same thing with other areas like radar and technical communications. Like, you know, the waveforms are going to be evolving so fast that you're going to have to have, you know, I think it's going to be more efficient at one central reprogramming center for all of your defense electronics, PNT, know, anti-jam receivers, things like that. And so

So there's things that a service could do better and the services need to see what those would be and either they adapt to doing that themselves or they have to really look at, this is gonna count. I went to the session on Ukraine yesterday and it's just amazing how they're fighting over there. It is a...

like things like they don't use frequency hopping radios really well. We think of those as, oh, well, sync ours or whatever we have here is going to frequency hop over there. There is so much jamming that wherever they hop to is Yeah, there's so much spectrum that is just completely torched between below six gigahertz. You know, we don't our PowerPoint slides and our plans and how we're going to fight don't account for that kind of a world. And so I look at that and I think that's just unbelievably. You know, we have to have a service that thinks about

that and internalizes those types of lessons. I don't think any military service right now is doing that in the US.

Ken Miller (08:44)
I think that that's one of the...

benefits of having an EMSO force. However, it looks not necessarily a new service, but a force that can be established to go in, understand the environment, and challenge each of the services appropriately. Because we've heard anecdotes continuously this week and before, where a military service will train against itself almost and its understanding of the battle space. And it'll assume other certain capabilities and adversarial threats.

and so forth, but they do it in a way that helps that service move forward in their operational construct. That doesn't help us train in a realistic environment because you can't make assumptions in the battlefield. And I think an EMSO force or something designed where you could establish ⁓ a neutral joint capability

that can challenge each of the services in their development and say, hey, this is what we need in this theater. Whether it's a hedge force or something, there has to be a different way to organize the EMSO capability. Because what we have, while we've made progress, I feel like there's still a lot of space, a lot of opportunity to solve the problem.

John Knowles (10:03)
Yeah, I do. think we are.

Again, I look at Ukraine and there's a lot of parts of that war that things they don't have that we would have or try to have, which is like air superiority. So they don't have an air component to their fight. It's not any traditional fixed wing fighter sense. ⁓ But you just look at how they've adapted and what they've had to do. And I think they would be the first country right now, I think, if anyone creates an EMS force, they might do it because just makes the electromagnetic spectrum is so central to that fight.

over there. That is Ukraine's way and this is an eloquent DW, right? Going back to the keynote yesterday, early in the week, eloquence versus mass. That's not the case. We're dealing with mass and I think the US is still stuck on eloquence and a lot of the West is still stuck on eloquence and we got to figure that out.

Ken Miller (11:03)
Well, John, it was great sitting down with you each day. It was great to see you there all week. We could see each other, like you said, AOC Europe, AOC convention and symposium. Really appreciate your insight. Looking forward to getting a start on 2026. There's a lot of messages we have to carry forward, whether you're industry, military, government, or association world like ourselves. But I appreciate you joining me here on from the Crow's Nest. And thanks for all.

your analysis of the show and for our listeners, ⁓ if they go to Jet Online, ⁓ they can read a lot of the articles that are out there. So please take a look at that as well as our previous daily podcasts. came to each day with ⁓ interviews from the show floor and everything. So take this opportunity ⁓ to learn more about what we covered over the last week. Really appreciate you joining me here on From the Cross Nest.

John Knowles (11:59)
Thanks for having me on, Ken.

Ken Miller (12:01)
All right, welcome back. I want to thank John Knowles for joining me throughout the week and of course today to provide a wrap up of AOC 2025. I'm now pleased to introduce my next guest, David Coyle. His call sign is Tesla. ⁓ He's the chief executive officer of Disruptive EW Machines. He is a 20 year Air Force veteran with deep experience in intelligence operations, EW and fifth generation fighter systems. So he's a graduate of the US Air Force Weapons School.

And he takes that operational experience and technical expertise into avionics, signals analysis, data analytics, just about everything. I met David a couple of weeks ago. Just wanted to have him on the podcast because I think that he is a really interesting, experienced voice in kind of where defense technology is going from an industry perspective. And so I want to have him on the show. David, thanks for joining me here on From the Crows Nest. It's great to have you on the show.

David Coyle (12:56)
Yeah, Ken, it's great to be here. I really appreciate you having me and taking the opportunity to talk a little bit more about DOOM and ⁓ how we can solve electronic warfare problems.

Ken Miller (13:07)
So just to begin, ⁓ now I know sometimes these questions will go unanswered, but your call sign Tesla, how did you get that?

David Coyle (13:17)
First off, it's kind of a play on the last name. So Tesla coil. So more for the scientists, not so much the car. ⁓ But there is an acronym behind it, given one of those embarrassing situations that we probably shouldn't talk about here, happy to fill you in later. Maybe over drinks or something.

Ken Miller (13:38)
whenever I ask those questions, it usually runs into something like that. It's like, well, there's a normal interpretation and there's some story behind it. And usually those stories just kind of go unmentioned. ⁓ definitely, it's definitely worth a beer in the future. But ⁓ it was ⁓ interesting because when we were first connected, someone was like, you have to talk to Tesla. And I'm like, I don't know who Tesla is. I didn't understand that it was a call sign until ⁓ they mentioned who you were. So thank you for doing that. So just to kind of get started, I

Probably a lot of our listeners haven't heard of disruptive EW machines, your company. So I just want to kind of give you a quick opportunity just to kind tell us a little bit about your company and how you got started because that's going to help us kind of get into this discussion about the capability side.

David Coyle (14:25)
Yeah, it's, ⁓ it's kind of a, ⁓ a bit of a longer story. So, I'll take it back to 2017. ⁓ 2017 I was working out at Luke Air Force base, active duty Air Force, supporting the transition of the base from a fourth generation Firebase to a fifth generation Firebase. And, ⁓ I was the, the new Intel weapons officer out there and I was responsible for building scenarios, training scenarios for a lot of the pilots.

that were flying ⁓ LFE's ⁓ and maintaining their currency. And they were constantly coming to me going, Tesla, hey, can you do something to boost the threat density or the threat capabilities inside of the scenario? And I'm like, well, absolutely. I can write that in the scenario, but you're still going to go fly against the same equipment that's out there.

We came up with this idea that we could take some new technology that was out with software-defined radios and some new amplifier technology that had come available and take that and adapt it for use to generate radar signals that replicated threats so that our pilots could get more advanced training out on the range. Not necessarily just new signals, new and advanced signals, but also increasing the density of what we had available to train against.

And so ⁓ we, we ended up building a prototype and we're really successful that that eventually became what, what was known as the low cost threat emitter. ⁓ We took that up through the innovation channels in the air force and ended up doing pretty well inside of there. But ⁓ that project continued to move on and we continued to iterate and grow and build that into something really good. And that kind of took us all the way, all the way up until into my retirement.

And then as I retired from active duty, I had a lot of folks that kept coming back to me saying like, Hey, can you, can you build, build some of these emitters like you did in the four? And, ⁓ you know, that kind of grew and grew and grew until finally we said, okay, like, let's, let's get a, let's get a business going. Let's build these things and let's, let's solve this problem and provide that, provide that capability out to the warfighter so that they can train against.

Ken Miller (16:43)
A lot of your background and your team's operational experience are rooted in real world EW, obviously from your time in active duty. A lot of discussion about a lot of thoughts on suppression of enemy air defenses. How do some of these missions, kind of from a war fighter perspective, you're going up against ever ⁓ increasing capabilities in terms of integrated air defenses.

you've flown against them, you've seen it in action. How do these missions shape the war fighter approach to a mission? And then what have you adopted and brought into your company in terms of how do you solve some of these capability gaps?

David Coyle (17:30)
Yeah. So it's really how, within how we built the team. So with, with each member of our team, we've, we've touched every piece of the puzzle. Um, we go all the way from, we have, we have folks on the team who have engineered and designed electronic warfare systems. have, uh, maintainers who have maintained these systems. Um, we have the signals intelligence and electronic warfare, uh, programming background. And then within the leadership team, we've got.

You know, two, ⁓ phenomenal pilots and F 15 pilot and an F 16 pilot. ⁓ so between all of that, we we've touched the entire life cycle of like the electronic warfare, ⁓ kind of continuum there, ⁓ all the way from design and building it all the way out to operations and building tactics to go against those specific systems. So all that to say is we, we have empathy.

with our customers and we understand the problem. And I think when you have those pieces, that becomes the recipe for generating a really good solution to that problem. So yeah, the experience of the team is just, it's been critical in being able to build the products that we build.

Ken Miller (18:48)
I want to get into this discussion about disruptive technology, because a lot of times when we talk about EW, we talk about suppression and things of nature, and we talk about the lethal effects and the destructive capabilities that we could employ. ⁓ But we sometimes, I think, glaze over disruption, what it really means in terms of the mission and the effectiveness in a mission to follow the disruptive path. When you get into advanced technology today and getting a new

capability into the field fast, a lot of the conversation gets into the agility of the system and of course, cost effectiveness because if you're going to be spending millions of dollars on one single solution, if that solution is not a trittable, you know, you're going to continue to be chasing ever decreasing costs threats with increasing costs solutions and that's not a way to succeed.

⁓ I want to talk a little bit about kind of what that means to be agile and cost effective in the EW space from an industry perspective to produce disruptive technology. So a lot to unpack there, but let's, I want to get your opinion on what disruptive technology is. What does that mean for, for the listeners?

David Coyle (20:04)
So, I mean, at its heart, it means doing things a little bit differently or really a lot differently. And we do that in a couple of different ways. One is with the way that we respond to the problem, right? We have never set out to build to a requirement that's out there. ⁓ We have always focused on the effect and we talk about it amongst our team that the product that we build is the effect that we provide.

And that's really all that matters and being able to do that in the simplest way at the lowest cost with the smallest equipment is really kind of what we focus on, not necessarily building something in the classical sense that is going to survive out in a desert for 10 years as it has a large infrastructure that's built around it. from the very beginning, sought to do this very differently from

you know, kind of building our go-to-market strategy as we provide this equipment out there and being able to do that in an iterative approach and getting that, getting the product out there quickly. Now on the technology side, I think what makes us different is ⁓ we kind of took the old idea of like, I'm going to build this emitter that comes with a specific library that does these specific things. And we, kind of flipped that over and we said, we're going to build an emitter that

is wide open and can do almost anything within the hardware capabilities of that system. Our systems do not have any sort of libraries associated with them. They are completely programmable and ⁓ the user can change what the system is just by changing the inputs to the system. So in the idea that we've created a wide open system that allows the user on the ground to be able to then program it to be

whatever the thread of the day is, it's just totally different from what we've really seen out there available for, for training or even operations.

Ken Miller (22:11)
So David, you mentioned earlier that a lot of the founding, the start of disruptive EW machines is rooted in training experiences and that EW training systems haven't quite evolved fast enough. So what are the biggest gaps in current training and real world EMSO threats that we need to be closing in our training for

Next Generation Warfare.

David Coyle (22:44)
Well, I think based on my experience and my teammates experience over the years, we've generally been training largely to a one versus one type of a fight. And I think what we're seeing, ⁓ in modern electronic warfare is that the classic kill chain is giving way to more of like a kill web.

Right. And, ⁓ you know, we're seeing sensors and threats become more and more ubiquitous. They're becoming lower costs. They're, ⁓ they're being fielded in, in numbers that are much larger than we've ever been able to, to create in a training environment. With our systems, we're able to build them at a much lower cost. Like we're talking one 50th or one 100th the cost of what's currently out there to enable that capability to put.

more threats and ⁓ increase density and increase that density within the electromagnetic spectrum, something more realistic towards what our troops are going to go out there and face in any sort of combat. The other thing is that, as we all know, the electromagnetic spectrum is dynamic and it's constantly changing. The threat systems that are being built today

⁓ they don't follow the same rules that they used to where you design a system and it's got just a few frequencies or a few parameter sets that it that it operates on. You know, these things have thousands of modes or hundreds hundreds up to thousands of modes some of which that we have maybe not even seen or collected or analyzed yet and one of the biggest gaps that I see is our ability to be able to train and build tactics against those new

and unidentified threats and determining how we're going to react to those when we see those ⁓ out in combat.

Ken Miller (24:41)
So this week, we're in the studio today on November 13th. This week, obviously, the big thing in the news was the government shut down and trying to reopen government under CR. But the other news that came out this week is a ⁓ presentation given by Secretary of War, Hegseth, outlining a really comprehensive acquisition reform package that Congress is going to try to implement pieces of. ⁓

very bold, very kind of shifting more toward agile adaptive systems that can be fielded quickly, lower cost. And it was a really, he also presented a huge challenge to prime contractors that they have to adapt or miss out. So from your industry perspective, what is the sense from industry about this acquisition reform proposal? Is it in the right path that we need to be going down? Is there anything that really

caught your attention with the provisions of the reform package.

David Coyle (25:41)
Yeah, that was, ⁓ there was some things inside of there that, caught my attention. One of the biggest ones that are one of the things that kind of ran true with us is focusing on fielding good enough technology instead of waiting for a product that meets every single requirement. And I think, you know, that statement was really kind of speaking to my heart and that's kind of how we structured, ⁓ structured our strategy is let's get something out there today that

that focuses on that effect, that achieves that effect, and let's build from there. Let's get the feedback, let's learn how it's working out in the field, let's learn what the customers think about it, and then let's go back and let's modify it and then let's make the next one better. We've always operated in that capacity, which is kind of what makes us a little bit different. Like I said earlier, we don't necessarily build to the requirement, we're building to achieve that effect. And the other piece of that,

that direction that came out from Secretary Hegseth was that the increments should target on the initial fielding and the goals that are associated with that and the minimum standards for effectiveness. And then everything else that is surrounding that becomes a trade space with which to operate in. And really focusing on the speed is kind what we've

we've been able to do with our product development and just get it out there, get it into the hands of the war fighter, get them using it. And then again, get that feedback so we can, we can make those changes that are necessary. And then what we're also doing is when we get that feedback and we make those changes, we're going back and we're upgrading the systems that are already in the field. that memo that he put out really kind of spoke to my heart.

Ken Miller (27:30)
I think it'll be interesting because I think, you know, lot of the times these acquisition reform proposals start out very bold and by the time our policymakers get their hands on it, it becomes more like, you know, rearranging deck chairs ⁓ on the Titanic. So it doesn't make the difference that we need to. But I think that what's interesting about this proposal is that it really does tap into

very clearly a lot of the language we hear from lessons learned in the conflicts going around the world, whether it's Ukraine or Indo Paycom, ⁓ kind of the capabilities we need, the cost we need to abide by, the speed to field. A lot of the things that we talk about on regular basis that we need to do, this reform package actually covers a lot of that. So it'll be interesting to see if...

once and for all, we finally do get a comprehensive reform package that has teeth. But keeping with that, you when you look at the conflicts around the world, whether it's Ukraine ⁓ or Indo-Pacom, you know, lot of the conversation gets into the need for spectrum awareness. And when you look over at the war, Russia-Ukraine war, you can see the cost of poor spectrum awareness. If you don't understand the spectrum, if you don't understand what's happening,

you're going to largely be ineffective in your mission. So how should we be changing the way that we train given what we know today and all the stuff that gets wrapped in together, acquisition reform, capability development, requirements? And then of course there's the training piece and not just US training, but training with our allies and partners, whether it's NATO or partners in the Indo Paycom region. How should we be changing how we train

US and allied forces.

David Coyle (29:26)
Yeah, I think what I've been most impressed with, with the conflict in Ukraine is really the innovation and adaptability and the speed at which all this is occurring within the conflict. And I think what, what that's telling us is that, that we've got to adjust our training to stay dynamic within that battle space. ⁓ in other words, you can't just train to, to the specific threats.

that are out there, but need to start training to react to a changing ENSO. We have to understand and build the tactics for what we do when our sensors start reporting those unidentified signals. How are we going to react to that really needs to be the question. It can't just be, I have threat X and I have this tactic against threat X and I'm going to go out and I'm going to execute that by the book every time that I see threat X. But what happens when

threat X changes and now it's a subcategory of threat X and it's threat X bravo or something. ⁓ How do we react to that and how do we train to that? That's going to be the big question moving forward. I think the other thing is the ubiquity of the threats and sensors that are out there. Everything's becoming smaller, cheaper, and in many cases commercialized. That's leading us to...

the things that we're concerned with being not just somewhere, but being everywhere. And, ⁓ we need to be able to increase the density in our training with adaptive wave forms to be able to, to train to an environment that's like that. Again, kind of going back to that we've trained to the one versus one for so long, but we need to get into the habit of training to the one versus many, or, or that the idea of a killed web instead of a kill chain.

Ken Miller (31:20)
So in keeping with that perspective on how we need to improve training, I know that your company has a system called Dart. Could you tell us a little bit, like, how does that program, it has to do with operating the C band, how does that advance this notion of changing the way that we train for EMSO?

David Coyle (31:41)
So in many different ways, Ken. ⁓ So DART stands for Dooms Intrudeable Radar Target. And the name kind of speaks to some of the design principles we use to develop the system for the effect that we're trying to create, either in the training environment or out in the battle space. So it's really changing the way that we go about this because of the dynamic capability of the system and the ability to change the waveform.

to be essentially whatever you needed to be within those hardware capabilities. You mentioned the C-band version, but we also have an S-band version that is available now. And then we are currently in development on an X-band version as well. ⁓ So not only are you able to kind of change the way that you're presenting the signals out in the environment there, we're also able to do it with a low cost and a low swap system.

that allows us to achieve the density ⁓ in training and the density in the electromagnetic spectrum environment to really recreate what the adversary is doing. And because it's low swap, it makes it a very mobile type of a system. We've operated our emitters inside, you know, on the ground, in the back of pickup trucks, off the balconies of buildings.

We've put them on autonomous vehicles and drove them around the battle space. We put them on surface vessels ⁓ to simulate ⁓ naval systems. So being able to have an emitter that is kind of wide open and operates over multiple bands is helping us create that diversity and ⁓ creating new challenges for not only the training environment, but ⁓ also

the spectrum awareness piece. In the same way that we can recreate an adversary system for training, we can also do the same thing ⁓ for a military deception type of situation. being able to recreate friendly or blue signals ⁓ is also within the capabilities of our system there. And so the importance of, you talked about the importance of spectrum awareness, but we're kind of going against.

against that and then creating a spectrum awareness problem for the adversary by being able to transmit various different waveforms during a conflict.

Ken Miller (34:15)
That's a fascinating twist on the approach. ⁓ it's very, very interesting how that can, because when we get into disruption, a lot of that has to do with how the adversary perceives your capabilities and what you're to do. ⁓ And kind of taking a problem and making it your adversary's problem is a unique approach. When you design for things like adaptability or

produce an attributable system or modular architecture. We're always talking about what's kind of on the horizon. And so just to kind of tie everything together, where do you see EMSO training heading in the next several years ⁓ in terms of where we really need to focus some additional attention?

David Coyle (35:03)
I think as we look forward to what the future of NSIL looks like, I think we're going to see the application of AI and ML machine learning inside of a lot of these systems. We've actually begun to work with a few other folks out in the industry to try to create a, like going back and forth. They're developing receivers.

that are applying AI and ML to try to identify new and unique signals of interest and relate them back to specific threats. And we have an emitter that can change what it is kind of in an instant. like we're already working with other folks in industry to try to with their development efforts to create this AI type of a system that is able to receive a signal.

look at the parameters associated with those signals, relate it back to what we know to be true based upon what we've analyzed in the past, and then come up with an assessment on the fly as to what ⁓ that system is. And I think, you know, as we look forward to the future of ⁓ electromagnetic spectrum operations with software-defined systems that are becoming ubiquitous and they're becoming

proliferated across the battlefield, as evidenced by what we see in Ukraine, ⁓ systems like that are going to be absolutely critical to be able to survive in a future conflict.

Ken Miller (36:39)
So if listeners want to learn a little bit more about disruptive VW machines, DEWM, ⁓ how can they reach out and connect with you?

David Coyle (36:48)
Just pop over to the website. It's www.doom.io. You can kind of see an overview of the system. You could see some media associated with some of the things that we've been doing over the past year. And ⁓ there's a contact button for us. You can absolutely just reach out through the website. we're standing by to respond to that.

That's probably the best and the easiest way for somebody to go out and learn more and then reach out contact us

Ken Miller (37:23)
David, thank you for taking time for joining me here on From the Crows Nest. This is a very really interesting topic and I think it represents a pathway that we need to pay be paying more attention to ⁓ in terms of next generation capabilities and not taking our sights off of the capabilities that we provide for training of our warfighters. And so I appreciate your leadership on this and look forward to talking with you again soon.

That will conclude this episode of From the Crow's Nest. I'd like to thank my guests, John Knowles and David Coyle for joining me. As I mentioned at the top of the show, this is our last episode of 2025, but we are already set for an exciting 2026 and we'll be back on January 7th. We have a lot of great episodes planned. We talk about what it means to be a crow. We also take a look at the state of directed energy as well as is it time to create an EMSO force? So a lot of good topics to kick off the new year.

New Year. We're looking forward to that. In the meantime, though, I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday, a good start to the new year, and we will see you back here on January 7th. That's it for today. Thanks for listening.