The research report o radar technology after Freshman Seminar and research in UoG

电子科技大学 格拉斯哥学院 2017级 张沛宇
UESTC&UoG joint programme 2017 Zhang Peiyu
This summary is the feedback for Freshman Seminar（UESTC&UoG）.

Introduction

In 16 November 2018, a famous military journal of England–<<Jane’s Defence Weekly>> published a report that China’s J-20 multirole ‘fifth-generation’ fighter aircraft has equipped KLJ-7A AESA radar, which are developed by The Nanjing Research institute of Electronics Technology (short as NRIET). This reports also cited the words from Hu Ming Chun, the director of NRIET, this kind of radar can cover the area about 170 km, and it can track at most 15 targets and attack at most 4 of them at the same time. This report reminds me of the class I took last semester, our tutor gave us some basic knowledge of radar, and I also searched some basic knowledge of radar when I finished paper in University of Glasgow, so here I combined all the information to make a summary.

The origin of radar——A story of Robert Alexander Watson-Watt

At the middle of the webpage of Google scholar, there is a famous saying: “standing on the shoulder of giants” said by Isaac Newton. In my own opinion, it’s the best introduction for today’s sub-topic——Sir Robert Alexander Watson-Watt, the pioneer of radar technology.
After graduating from the college, Watson-Watt was encouraged and inspired by his mentor and started to research of radar, which was a new area at that time, and worked for military after the outbreak of the first world war, majored in meteorological field.
At the beginning of the second world war, German bomber posed great threat to English military, because of the improvement of the aircraft capability, the bomber can reach England, drop the bomb and return to base in a very short period. English were struggling with this kind of attack and could not figure out a way to solve the problem. Air Ministry, a department which managing the Royal Air Force, decided to invent an electronic equipment which can detect the enemy planes in a long distance, and this vital mission was assigned to Watson-Watt, head of radio research at UK’s national physical laboratory at that time.
In 1932, Watson-Watt wrote a report about radar detection and to get the fund, he used the BBC’s shortwave broadcast stations at Daventry to do demonstration, which is the famous “Daventry experiment”. In the demonstration, the equipment sent the signal from the broadcast station and detect a bomber took off 12km away successfully. This experiment proved the feasibility of entity detection.
After the demonstration, English government showed great interest on his research and gave him authorization of research. After solving lots of problems like signal emission, processing……, finally in 1935,Watson-watt put his detect equipment on a truck, a moving target took off 15km away and the equipment received the signal when the target moved to 12km away, and quickly, he got the patent of a radar detect equipment, that is the birth of radar detection.
Soon, English military made use of this technology and improved it, the detecting range became larger and finally the radar were able to detect the German Air Force. English military can get to know the position, number and even the speed of enemy planes, then they could prepare to defense in advance. This invention provided great support to the military protected the English.
It is radar which makes English to success in Battle of Britain. And even in modern society, radar still takes significant position, it can be used not only on military but also our daily life. But all the achievement are based on the contribution of Watson-watt. That’s what I want to say at the beginning, just like radar can’t invented without the establish of Maxwell’s equation, science is a long process. We are all standing on the giant’s shoulder, any breakthrough of science can’t leave the foundation of previous achievement.

What is the stage of radar in China?——brief history for Chinese radar

The history of Chinese radar starts in the middle of the twentieth century, KMT (Kuomintang of China) built a repairing station of radar in Nanjing, which recollected the radar of America, after the founding of PRC, the station became the 14th Research Institution of China Electronics Technology Group Corporation.
After that , Chinese government started to develop radar by themselves, and also has great achievement, the radar invented were used into Korean War, the 14th research institution became the largest research institution of radar in China.
While the moving ahead with technology, Chinese radar technology has developed to the front rank of China. Radar technology is a significant part of contemporary military, with the development of radar, Chinese national defense capability will have a great progress.

Some personal thought

Nowadays, the present international situation remains tense and turbulent, so it’s vital for a country to improve military capacity. Radar is very important in communication and detection, although radar technology in China is at the front rate in the world, we should make progress in this area to protect the peace and avoid turbulent situation.

Reference

https://janes.ihs.com/Janes/Display/1844107
https://www.sohu.com/a/148122005_395702
China national defense newspaper (2014). the descendant of the steam inventer invented the radar.