Chinese researchers have announced a new breakthrough in radar technology and its detection capacity hypersonic missileswhich fly at speeds between Mach 5 and Mach 25. A team led by Professor Zheng Xiaoping from the Department of Electronic Engineering at Tsinghua University claims to have developed a radar system capable of accurately track 10 hypersonic missiles traveling at Mach 20, 24,700 km/h, while identifying and eliminating false targets.
In Earth simulationsThe new radar demonstrated extraordinary accuracy, estimating the distance of a missile traveling at nearly 7 km per second. with a margin of error of only 28 cm. It also achieved an accuracy of up to 99.7% in estimating the missile’s speed, a percentage previously considered unattainable, according to the South China Morning Post.
Generating and analyzing radar signals accurately for measurement requires electrons to move at extremely high speeds, which can burn radar circuit boards. This problem has been overcome incorporating lasers into its design. This allows the transmission of information between key nodes reach the speed of lightwhich makes it easier for the radar system generate and process much more complex microwave signals that accurately measure objects at ultra-high speeds.
Interceptor missiles and laser weapons that can counter incoming hypersonic weapons require precise target position and velocity parameters to be successful. According to a report published last year by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington-based think tank, One of the Pentagon’s needs is to obtain a radar that can track hypersonic targets with high precision. for interceptor missile systems and improve their defense capabilities against them.
According to the peer-reviewed article published in the Chinese journal Optical Communication Technology, this new microwave photon radar It has a detection range of more than 600 kmIts compact and lightweight design makes it suitable for deployment in air defense missiles or aircraftand military experts consider it a key technology for the next generation of radars.
Zheng and his team have built a complete radar systemincluding chips and transmitters, verifying performance in a laboratory with instruments that simulate the movement of hypersonic targets in the atmosphere.
Another problem that researchers faced is the appearance of ghost images on radar screens, with the number of false signals often outnumbering the real ones. Using laser technology, Zheng’s team enabled the radar to send three different microwave bands simultaneouslyimproving the accuracy of detection. They also developed an algorithm that Completely eliminates false target interference by comparing signals of different frequencies.