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‘Nowhere to hide’: Chinese scientists develop game-changing military surveillance device for electronic warfare
- Scientists say they have achieved seamless, wide bandwidth, real-time monitoring and analysis of the electromagnetic spectrum
- It covers a massive frequency range which picks up everything from amateur radio broadcasts to Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites
The team of scientists from Beijing said for the first time they have achieved seamless, wide bandwidth, real-time monitoring and analysis of the electromagnetic spectrum, leaving any enemy completely out in the open during a conflict.
Details of the game-changing technology were published by project lead scientist Yang Kai, a professor from the school of information and electronics at the Beijing Institute of Technology, and his team in a peer-reviewed paper in the Chinese academic journal Radio Communications Technology on January 17.
In the paper, Yang wrote that the new breed of electromagnetic spectrum monitoring gear is “small in size, high in performance and low in power consumption”.
Due to the enormous amount of data to be processed in the heat of combat, this technology was previously considered a pipe dream.
The scientists said it will cause “a profound shift in the art of war”.
China and the United States are currently locked in an intense tussle for dominion over the electromagnetic spectrum.
Although there may be exaggerated elements in China’s propaganda, interviewed officers and soldiers revealed an important detail: they had activated electromagnetic emitting equipment including high-power phased array radars and firmly locked on to a series of targets including US carrier-based aircraft in the offensive and defensive contest of electronic warfare.
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Hamstrung by hardware limits, the real-time analysis bandwidth of traditional spectrum monitoring systems is generally restricted to a range of 40-160 MHz, according to Yang.
Signals outside this range, especially high-frequency ones, are typically monitored via sampling scans. With this method, there is a good chance of missing something important.
This means that even if the US military suddenly switches to civilian frequencies and emits a pulse signal in a short period of time, it can still be captured and analysed by the Chinese military. As a result, wireless communications between US military units may be affected or interrupted due to Chinese suppression.
To attain this broader capability, the scientists said they developed a series of new signal processing chips.
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When all these signals are captured by high-performance antennas, they produce a massive data flow. Previous digital processing chips were unable to handle such a huge workload.
But Yang said the new chips can effectively split this flood of data into smaller streams before computational processing. This reduces the processing burden and makes it possible to monitor a large number of signal sources simultaneously over a wide frequency range.
The scientists have also revamped the structure of the electromagnetic signal filter that works with the chip, and with new mathematical methods it improves the processor’s work efficiency without sacrificing any signals.
The surveillance device also needs to conduct automatic analysis of the processed signals to obtain high-value information, such as the signals’ physical parameters, modulation methods and the identification of friendly or civilian sources. Traditional methods have not been able to immediately provide reliable analysis.
The integration of in-house chips and AI has enabled the Chinese military to achieve unprecedented information perception capabilities at a lower cost. Even in the face of enemy jamming, they can still find the enemy’s weaknesses from strong background noise and effectively counter them, Yang’s team wrote in the paper.
He is also very active internationally, having worked at Bell Labs and taken part in the development of multiple international telecommunications standards. He currently serves as the secretary general of the Green Communications and Computing Technical Committee of the IEEE, the world’s largest organisation of electronic engineers.
Some scientists put the rapid development of China’s military electromagnetic technology down to its world-leading telecommunications industry.
Leading Chinese telecommunications firms, such as Huawei, have invested heavily in cutting-edge wireless communication technologies, reaping significant rewards.
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