Last month, a paper published in the academic journal Electrical and Control revealed that China is developing the world's most powerful carrier-based radar, which can detect ballistic missiles up to 4,500 kilometers away, equivalent to the distance from southern China to northern Australia. At a range of 3500 km, it can track several targets at the same time. This performance far exceeds any active phased array radar currently in the world.
If this research is ultimately successful and applied to existing warships, it will significantly enhance the Chinese Navy's operational advantage. A longer search range means that the enemy finds the target before it and warns of incoming missiles. This will significantly improve attack and defense capabilities.
According to the paper, the first new radar system is under construction. At present, the latest shipborne phased array radar of the US military is SPY-6, with a maximum detection range of 2,300 kilometers, and the working search range is limited to several hundred kilometers. This is mainly limited by the huge amount of power required for operation. The ship's power supply capacity is limited by limited space and cannot provide enough power for radar.
However, China's new radar overcomes this problem by reducing energy consumption and volume, and can be deployed on new ships with electric propulsion systems. In addition, there is another problem, which is that such high-power radars emit pulsed electromagnetic waves of up to 30 megawatts when operating. This high-energy electromagnetic wave is almost comparable to an electromagnetic pulse bomb, enough to destroy all the electronics on existing warships.
Therefore, reducing radar energy consumption not only adapts to the power supply of ships, but also reduces electromagnetic pulse waves, which can be described as killing two birds with one stone. Nevertheless, the pulsed electromagnetic waves of the new radar are still somewhat destructive. To solve this problem, the research team turned to the high-speed rail team in China for help.
High-speed rail is driven by high-voltage currents and equipped with powerful and reliable capacitors. CRRC Group has developed the world's first large-scale production line for supercapacitors. Tests have shown that CRRC's customized capacitors for the new radar can eliminate the electromagnetic pulses it generates, while the entire power supply and capacitance system weighs just over a ton to meet the needs of ship installation.
In addition, the application of 5G technology has greatly reduced the volume of key components of radar. Taking the land-based long-range radar of the United States as an example, the 32 MW ANFPS-85 radar installed in Florida covers an area of more than 23,000 square meters, equivalent to three football fields. Today, China's new radar has similar detection capabilities, but is greatly compressed enough to be mounted on large ships.
As a result, the new radar not only improves work efficiency, but also has a low power load, which is only 235 kilowatts when fully loaded, which can meet the load capacity of mainstream warships.
From the above information, it can be seen that China is already in a leading position in the world in the local field of research and development of military equipment. Not long ago, the U.S. military and Congress were anxious and terrified by Chinese hypersonic missiles and hyped up their threat to the U.S. Navy.
Today, the advent of new radars is no less military than hypersonic missiles. The emergence of new radars has improved the overall combat power of the Navy, and the offensive and defensive capabilities have been improved at the same time. Because only with powerful search and tracking capabilities can the power of hypersonic missiles be effectively exerted.
Although reconnaissance satellites also have search and positioning capabilities, they are greatly disturbed by orbital period and meteorological factors, resulting in certain limitations and blind spots in detection and tracking, while surface warships can provide stable and reliable detection capabilities.
When China had just tested the atomic bomb, Western countries ridiculed China for its only warheads and lack of delivery tools, and still could not pose a threat to the West. Now, China's hypersonic missiles paired with new radars are like equipping the Marksman with a clairvoyant, maximizing anti-access and area denial capabilities, and further weakening U.S. superiority in the Western Pacific.