China is well aware that one of the toughest aspects that must be faced in a conflict with the United States is the superiority of the United States in the technology of stealth fighters and bombers.
Although the Chinese Air Force is now aggressively developing a fleet of stealth fighter jets, it will still be difficult to keep up with the US superiority. Departing from the above conditions, the Chinese researchers tried to make a powerful anti-stealth antidote.
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Quoted from the South China Morning Post (23/8/2022), Chinese researchers have succeeded in developing a prototype heat-seeking radar that can sniff out stealth fighter aircraft from a distance of 300 Kilometers, and can even scan the entire sky in a matter of a few seconds.
Exactly what Chinese researchers are doing is building a heat-seeking radar platform out of a small infrared search-and-track system (IRST) that can detect heat signatures from high-speed moving aircraft at incredible distances.
A team of engineers from defense contractor Sichuan Jiuzhou Electric Group Company, published a paper in the Chinese journal, Infrared and Laser Engineering, on Aug. 19, claiming that the developed infrared system can see and track civilian aircraft from a distance, over 285 kilometers.
"The outline of the target, such as the rotor, tail, and number of engines can be identified from the infrared spectrum image," said the team led by Liu Zhihui, an electro-optical engineer. According to the researchers, the heat-seeking radar can also emit laser beams to 'illuminate' or clarify the target aircraft to gather more information, such as the number of windows on the plane.
Due to its small size, this radar system can be installed in cars, airplanes, or even satellites for a variety of purposes, including "surveillance, early warning, and missile guidance systems," Zhihui said.
Zhihui said that the radar evasion design feature on stealth aircraft does not affect the performance of the IRST, as it relies on the infrared (IR) signature alone. The aircraft's IR signature consists of heat generated from the engine and frictional heating with the air with the nose and front end becoming hot as the aircraft cuts through the air at high speed.
Despite measures to reduce the IR marking of an aircraft, for example, US stealth aircraft such as the F-35, F-22, and F-117 Nighthawk have been spotted with reflective metallic coatings – mirrors that are said to reduce IR markings, but the facts are still difficult. to hide it from the increasingly sophisticated IRST system.
In addition, IRST technology is completely passive, meaning that it does not provide the location of the aircraft it is mounted on, unlike search radars which emit radio waves if the pilot uses the radar in active mode to detect enemy aircraft.
China has reportedly developed an IRST radar for the Shenyang J-20 stealth aircraft which can pick up the IR signatures of US B-2 stealth bombers and F-22 fighters from a distance of 150 kilometers and 110 kilometers, respectively. Counter-stealth radar technology has become one of the main areas of research in China, especially after US B-2 stealth bombers accidentally attacked the Chinese embassy in Belgrade during the 1999 NATO air war in Yugoslavia.
The vulnerability of the B2 stealth bomber to the IRST system began to emerge in the 1990s, when the Soviet Union developed an advanced heat-seeking detection system. According to US aeronautical experts with access to classified B-2 design and performance data, the stealth bomber has specific hot spots, which include non-metallic skin parts of the fuselage and inlet, exhaust pipes, and exhaust fumes from the four turbo-fan jets.
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| IRST device in Gripen NG |
However, the detection range of the IR sensor is not very large because IR waves are absorbed rapidly by the atmosphere due to their relatively low energy in the electromagnetic spectrum.
In their paper, Zhihui's team notes that increasing the detection range of infrared radar is not easy, because only a few photons – light particles – can reach the detector's tiny lens. Zhihui says their system uses an advanced single photon detector to solve this problem. Single phone detector (SPD) is an optical sensor commonly used in quantum machines to accurately detect and measure single photons.
The Zhihui team did not give specifics about their SPD, but China is known as a leading player in this field. For example, in 2016, China launched Mozi, a satellite equipped with the most sensitive SPD at the time capable of facilitating quantum communications into space for the first time.
Another challenge, according to Zhihui, is the aircraft's speed, as infrared radars have to scan the sky for long periods of time to catch distant threats with weak signals and fast-moving targets can leave hazy shadows. Therefore, Zhihui's team introduced a fast rotating mirror inside to eliminate motion blur by precisely and automatically adjusting the direction of the beam of light.
The Zhihui team claims that their radar can scan the entire sky in search mode for distant targets in just a few seconds, faster than most heat-seeking radars currently in use. Zhihui said that they tested their radar in challenging temperature conditions, varying from minus 40 degrees to 60 degrees Celsius and the performance remained stable.
As per the claims of the scientists involved in the project, the device is also capable of identifying and tracking the International Space Station (ISS) from a distance of more than 1,000 kilometers on a clear night.
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