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At the end of 2023, Beiwake Technology will go south to Guangzhou to start the production of automotive lidar in full swing.
In 2018, Benewake Technology began to enter the field of automotive lidar, and has made a lot of gains, with more than 90 countries and regions around the world covered by Benewake Technology's business, and lidar has officially achieved large-scale and mass production in the commercial and civil fields.
In an interview, Mr. Li Yuan, CEO of Benenewake, said in a very low-key manner: "The success of Benewake Technology is mainly due to domestic technology and supply support. ”
But on the other hand, he pointed out in a high-profile manner: "At present, in the field of radar, especially lidar, China is already in a leading position." ”
Li Yuan, CEO of Beixing
Li Yuan's words seem like a scene, but in fact, in the field of radar, even if we are not ranked first, we will never fall behind.
On December 27, Suteng Juchuang, which specializes in lidar, was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, with a market value of more than HK$19.3 billion, becoming the world's most valuable lidar company, once again confirming the mainland's leading position in the radar field.
In addition to lidar, which is widely used in the civilian field, the radar technology in the continental army field is also advanced.
It is worth noting, however, that the mainland's radar technology has actually lagged behind others for quite a long time, and it has only been a matter of more than a decade that it has really caught up with and surpassed others.
So, how did we achieve the leadership in the radar field in more than ten years, and what twists and turns did it have?
At one time, it lagged behind the West
For military enthusiasts, "radar" is really a familiar word, radar is the transliteration of "Rader", the full name in foreign languages is called "radio reconnaissance and ranging technology", through the target transmission pulse signal and then receive feedback, to achieve the target orientation, distance and various information detection.
Radar technology originated in the 30s of the last century, and in the past 70 years, Western countries have been in an absolute leading position in mastering radar technology.
The theoretical basis of radar was actually incubated in the 19th century, but due to the low utilization rate of electromagnetic pulses, practical radar was never born, and radar became famous in World War II.
In 1940, Nazi Germany, faced with the English Channel that had not been crossed for a long time, brazenly launched the largest air battle in World War II - the Battle of Britain, and thousands of German warplanes flew into British airspace to bomb them.
At that time, Nazi Germany sent nearly 3,000 warplanes, while Britain had only about 1,000.
But the fact is that the Luftwaffe did not fight well, on the contrary, sometimes fell behind, and they were often surprised to find that their fighters had just entered British airspace and were discovered and then shot down.
In fact, this was thanks to the British radar early warning system, and Britain at that time established a number of high-altitude radar stations across the country, often anticipating the enemy and discovering the location of German fighters in advance, so as to counterattack.
The victory in the Battle of Britain was largely due to Watson Watt, a man who worked in weather forecasting and accidentally discovered radio waves reflected off buildings, which led to the idea of using radio waves for ranging and even reconnaissance.
In 1935, Watson succeeded in developing a device for radio transmission and reception, built the first practical radar, and was later appointed research director at the National Physical Laboratory in the United Kingdom.
He led the team to build radar stations in various parts of the United Kingdom to achieve effective early warning of German raids.
Shortly thereafter, the United States also developed radar technology and applied it to the military field.
In World War II, aircraft carriers and fighter planes sprung up, but at the same time, the complexity of the battlefield also required the performance of fighters.
Fighters have the need to detect the enemy and give birth to early warning of air attacks, and airborne radar has also come into being.
Among them, the early warning aircraft can be equipped with airborne early warning radar to realize the exploration, detection, surveillance, and command tasks of air and sea.
Fighters are mostly equipped with airborne fire control radars, which can track and determine hostile targets by themselves, and achieve accurate strikes on targets with the assistance of fire control computers, and this kind of radar also has all-weather early warning functions.
Before and after World War II, radar technology developed rapidly and blossomed everywhere, and the United States, Britain, Germany, France, the Soviet Union and other countries all had their own radar technology, from the initial electromagnetic wave radar, and gradually iterated to synthetic aperture radar, pulse Doppler radar, lidar, phased array radar, etc.
At present, Doppler radar and phased array radar are the main military types, among which phased array radar is the mainstream.
Phased array radar is composed of countless small antennas that can achieve independent control, forming an "antenna array", each antenna is an independent radiator, and the overall power is very high, far superior to ordinary radar.
The United States created a practical phased array radar in the 50s of the last century, and in the 70s, the struggle for hegemony between the United States and the Soviet Union entered a white heat, and the phased array radar also entered a peak of development.
Radar was born in the military field, and its iteration speed was also greatly affected by the intensity of the war, but after the end of World War II, the mainland had the conditions to explore radar, and it started late, so it was in a backward position for a long time.
China started from nothing
The mainland's exploration and development of radar technology has been a long and tortuous one.
In April 1949, after the liberation of Nanjing, technicians began to be stationed in the Radar Research Institute, which is now the 14th Research Institute.
It is said to be a "radar research institute", but all that can be found in it are a few dilapidated machine tools and radars captured from the Kuomintang army, and this radar is basically made in the United States and Japan.
The 14 institutes started with only more than 100 employees, but they carried all the hopes of the radar industry in New China.
Due to the late start and poor technology, at first the 14 institutes could only repair the radars of the US and Japanese armies obtained from various channels, and slowly explored the technology.
After the 50s, with the implementation of the Soviet-aided construction project, the mainland began to use the experience accumulated and the technology provided by the Soviet Union to imitate radars, and various types of ship-based radars, airborne radars and early warning radars came out one after another.
Initially, the 314 Type A warning radar was developed, and later the 314 Type B warning radar that can be mass-produced was developed on the basis of it.
The Type 314 radar was basically the first independently developed radar in the mainland, but at that time, there was not enough funds, and second, there was a lack of technology, and the development of the mainland's radar technology was very slow, and in 1960, the Soviet Union directly withdrew the relevant experts, and the mainland's radar technology also fell into silence for several years.
However, the researchers of the 14 institutes are not idle, they are working hard to do research all night, and some people often do not fit their eyes for days and nights, but the gap in technology cannot be bridged in a short time.
In the mid-sixties, the mainland's 607 Institute was inspired by the R-14A radar carried by the F-105 and created the 317 radar, which was used on the J-5, but this radar can only be described as "better than nothing".
It was only on this basis that the mainland developed the JL-7 radar, which achieved a considerable breakthrough.
At this time, the mainland's airborne radar was finally no longer able to only engage in ranging as before, but could carry out some altitude and topographic surveying and mapping, and its actual combat value was greatly enhanced.
Later, the mainland continued to improve on the basis of the JL-7, and at the same time introduced a lot of Western radars to fill some gaps in the field.
We are humbly seeking advice, the other is concentrating on technology, and finally at the beginning of this century, we made up for the past "arrears" and had our own pulse Doppler radar 1471 type, which finally had a place in the radar field, and the real leader was achieved in the next ten years or so.
After 1471, the 1473 radar was mounted on the J-10 fighter, and then we began to engage in phased array radar, and achieved "corner overtaking" on the active phased array radar, and achieved the leader in the radar field in just ten years.
On the one hand, we have made great strides in the military field, and on the other hand, we have already realized the civilian use of phased array radar.
In fact, China has led the world in the field of radar
In today's world, if you want to measure a country's achievements in the field of radar, phased array radar is definitely an important indicator.
Phased array radar is mainly engaged in by the United States and the Soviet Union, and the active phased array radar after that is even more so, because compared with the passive one, although the active one has a lot of improvement in performance, it is prohibitive in terms of technical difficulty and cost.
Compared with the traditional phased array radar, the active phased array radar has an independent power supply for each antenna unit, which can realize independent signal transmission and reception, and the power and anti-interference ability will naturally go up to a higher level, but the technical difficulty and cost will also increase geometrically.
At the 2015 military parade, the mainland's air police-500 was officially unveiled, and then in 2016, the J-10C also emerged, and the reason why the two are compared is because they are equipped with the most advanced domestic active phased array radar.
And these two radars are used for early warning, and the other is used for fire control, and the overall performance is absolutely world-class, and only the United States can compare with it in the world, and it is not an exaggeration to say that it is the leader.
However, this kind of leadership seems to be less than ten years or so, but it is inseparable from the long-term accumulation, although we from 06, 07 years began to vigorously engage in phased array radar technology, but in the 70s of the last century we have mastered the basic phased array radar technology.
Today, we are not only able to carry active phased array radars on all kinds of advanced fighters, but also widely use them for civilian use.
Last year, there was a news of "phased array radar against wild boars" rushed to the hot search, and some farmers deployed domestic phased array radars in farmland to detect the movement of wild boars, and the effect was surprisingly good.
You know, this technology has not been able to achieve large-scale military use in many other countries......
So, in the field of radar, our position can be imagined.
Although the mainland started relatively late in the field of radar and once lagged behind the Western countries, with the hard work and humble learning Xi of the experimental personnel of the research institute, we have achieved the transformation from backwardness to leadership in only about 10 years.
And such a miracle is thanks to the unremitting efforts and struggles of scientific researchers.
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Bibliography:
[1] Guo Gaofeng.Review of radar technology development and future trend of multifunctional phased array radar[J].Value Engineering,2