• nekandro@lemmy.mlOP
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    5 months ago

    I don’t think this work is even that surprising, which is perhaps the surprising part to most people. Fusing information from a network of radars has always been the Achilles heel of stealth aircraft. It’s just that radar fusion at a country-level scale hadn’t really been demonstrated before.

    • Liz@midwest.social
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      5 months ago

      The US is openly talking about the networking capabilities of the F-35 and other aircraft, I would expect that they simply don’t/didn’t want to publicize they had radar fusion. The US is hands-down the most advanced military in the world, so there’s little need to brag about counter-measure capabilities. We brag about our military through offensive dick-measuring. As a result, it’s a double bonus for the Chinese to brag that they’ve neutralized one of our offensive capabilities, because they can’t directly brag about their own offensive abilities.

      • nekandro@lemmy.mlOP
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        5 months ago

        Why would China want offensive abilities? Their only military engagements in recent history (if you exclude their embassy getting bombed in Serbia) have been fought with sticks and water guns.

        Chinese policy has always been domestically-focused.

        • Liz@midwest.social
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          5 months ago

          China wants offensive capabilities because what China considers domestic policy and what other countries consider domestic policy are not always the same thing. See: who is the rightful government of China, or man-made islands to expandf resource claims. Furthermore, offensive capabilities are dual-purpose and can be used to repel invasion. If all you have is defense (like passive armor), then advisories can attach without worrying about counter attack.

      • nekandro@lemmy.mlOP
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        5 months ago

        The US is happy to fly an F-22 around willy nilly in air shows and whatever /s

        The real answer is that the J-20’s RCS is probably similar to the F-22 and they realized that the J-20 is vulnerable to this. This has been a known problem with stealth technology for forever, so it’s really more of a deterrence. China really doesn’t want a war, which is why their Navy is so heavily oriented towards coastal (defensive) operations rather than blue water (offensive/power projection) operations.

  • mlg@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Xie’s team said it had overcome this long-standing engineering challenge. The researchers said their “smart resource scheduling” method allowed a centralised networking radar system to adjust beam parameters and the power of each radar based on the characteristics and real-time positional changes of stealth aircraft in the theatre.

    This allowed the system to focus its limited detection resources on the most exposed azimuth, or angle of arrival, of the stealth fighter, significantly enhancing the intensity and tracking accuracy of its radar signature while ensuring it is continuously locked on to the target.

    Pretty cool stuff, it’s really the backend and reliability they need to implement.

    US aircraft actually already do this where multiple radars from multiple aircraft can be auto coordinated to increase range and resolution, possibly via link 16.

    • ForgotAboutDre@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Sounds like the solution to overcome this is to send two F22s. All their radars will be focusing on the first one it’ll be easier for the second to go by undetected.

      • nekandro@lemmy.mlOP
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        5 months ago

        More radars for more planes

        it’s not that complicated

        At the end of the day, this is a defensive innovation. While the US has a limited supply of F-22s, China has an essentially infinite supply of radar installations.

        • ForgotAboutDre@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          They don’t have an infinite supply of radar installations.

          They are only just able to detect the aircraft at the end of its life.

          The US can produce more f35s than china can produce radar installations. This aircraft is still in mass production, with many more being built and sold to many nations. Which likely can’t be detected. If they could then that would be in the announcement.

          It’s a bigger deal to detect the newer and more widely available aircraft that can be launched from aircraft carriers. The F22 is an interceptor, primarily for defense. So it’s less likely to be used where multiple hostile radar installations are in range.

    • SkyezOpen@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      adjust beam parameters and the power of each radar based on the characteristics and real-time positional changes of stealth aircraft in the theatre.

      So uh… That sounds like they have to know where it is in order to detect it on radar.

    • Zron@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      All this effort to identify a stealth aircraft first developed in 1996

      I don’t know which is more impressive, the tech the US military had 28 years ago, or the amount of engineering time china had spent on spotting a jet that has seen limited use and is being replaced by an even newer stealth jet.

      • K4mpfie@lemmy.ml
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        5 months ago

        I mean 1996 is still reasonably new 🤷‍♂️ I wouldn’t disregard this achievement as easily as you do. Especially since this is just the research that is released to the public. If they can do this it is not without doubt that they have even more capabilities they’re not sharing openly.