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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The short excerpt suggests this, yes
But spoiler alert: they too will have thought about that.
