Seventeen years ago, the third-generation destroyer was officially launched, and China's navy fleet was about to bid farewell to the maritime air defense system composed of Haihongqi-7 and Hongqi-61, so that our navy truly has regional air defense capabilities. The 052C air defense core is composed of the first-generation shipborne active phased array radar system independently developed by China and the long-range active ship-to-air missile Haihongqi 9. Let's take it a step further and get a glimpse of the hardware of this radar.
Early active phased arrays used vacuum elements as radiation units, such as the world's first active phased array radar An FPS 85 developed by the United States in the 60s of the 20th century, whose transmitting antenna array is composed of 5184 vacuum quadruple tubes, with an average power of more than 400KW. Although the vacuum tube has the advantages of low cost and high output power, the disadvantages are also obvious, such as due to the high peak power requirements, the feeder also puts forward high requirements, as well as such as narrow working bandwidth, high power consumption and heat generation, low reliability, etc., especially the volume problem has become the fatal injury in the application of some specific carrier engineering.
In the 21 st century, surface warships are facing an ever-increasing threat from the air, and due to a relatively large increase in the range of anti-ship missiles, the main targets intercepted by surface warships have been changed from enemy launch platforms to various types of anti-ship missiles. Most shipborne phased array radars not only have to monitor and distinguish multiple batches of high-altitude and long-range targets and provide early warning for the fleet, but also have the ability to quickly intercept and stably track low-altitude approaching small targets to guide ship-to-air missiles to carry out interception tasks, which requires the radar not only to have a long detection distance but also to have a good angular resolution. We know that under the same antenna aperture size, the wavelength is inversely proportional to the angular resolution and proportional to the detection range, so the phased array radar should be designed to select the appropriate operating frequency according to different tasks. For phased array radars mounted on large air defense ships, the requirements for detection range and accuracy are not low, so the working frequency is selected at 20ghz-4.0GHz is more appropriate, such as SPY-1, Sampson and the future DDG1000 VSR all work in the S-band, and the phased array radar on the 052C will obviously not be out of this category.
For the active array, in addition to selecting the appropriate working wavelength and maintaining the premise of low side lobes, it is also required to further increase the average power of the radar, and the easiest way is to increase the number of radiating units, but due to the strict space constraints of a specific carrier, this method has great limitations. Therefore, we can only hope that the power density of the active array can be improved to a higher level, that is, the average power of the output transmitted signal per unit area of the array will be increased. At the same time, in order to improve the measurement accuracy and identify the target and have good anti-jamming ability, the radar is also required to have a large working bandwidth and signal bandwidth. In addition, MTBF (mean time between failures) is also an important technical and tactical indicator of active arrays. To sum up, it is not difficult to find that the shipborne active array material should not only have good high-frequency working ability, large working bandwidth, but also high power density, small volume and high reliability, while taking into account the cost. Electric vacuum devices are obviously difficult to satisfy, which has led to the application of microwave transistors.
With the current crystal processing technology and the needs of tactical active phased array radar, gallium arsenide (Gaas) and silicon two-stage transistors are suitable for microwave transistors operating in active arrays with frequencies above the S-band. If you choose between the two, if the cost is within the acceptable range and technical conditions allow, Gaas is preferred.
Because the operating frequency of Gaas can be much higher than that of silicon bipolar transistors, it can provide a large design margin for the instantaneous bandwidth of the radar, and whether the instantaneous bandwidth can be high will directly affect the resolution of the radar, and it is also related to the electronic warfare capability, so if the technical conditions support, Gaas is a better choice. However, choosing Gaas also brings two problems, 1Cost. At the previous level of processing, the cost of Gaas was 2,30 times that of silicon bistators, and the yield rate was low, even in the background of the processing technology at that time in 94 and 95, the cost of Gaas was several times that of silicon bistators. 2.The pulse power level of Gaas is much lower than that of silicon bipolaris, and the power is difficult to increase and it also puts forward high requirements for the accuracy of power division, which may lead to direct breakdown if it is not grasped well. These two conditions also give the premise for my speculation below.
On the other side of the world, there is a shipborne active phased array radar similar to 346, which is the core "Sampson" radar of the Type 45 destroyer, which represents the highest level in Europe, and the Sampson working band is also the S-band, and the radar single array is composed of 2600 gallium arsenide, which is packaged into a T R module for every four for a total of 650 T The maximum detection distance is more than 450 kilometers, and at a distance of 320 kilometers, it can track 4,000 targets at the same time and establish a stable track for 168 of them at the same time. Sampson can guide 32 Asters (Aster 15 30) to intercept 16 targets at the same time. It can be said that Sampson and Aster are a good match, and each gives full play to the performance of the other party without reservation.
Considering the level of research and practical application of the domestic electronics industry, there is enough reason to believe that the MMIC of the 346 radar used in the Type 052C destroyer uses silicon bipolar transistors, because the radar is the result of a balanced compromise between cost and technical conditions and other objective factors (such as the source of goods). Judging from the single front surface alone, there is indeed a gap between the 346 and Sampson in hardware. However, Sampson is also the product of weighing technical conditions and cost factors, so there is a change from the original four-sided fixed array to the current double-sided array. The choice of gallium arsenide as the radiating unit to cause the rise in ** may not be the whole reason for this change, but it is not unrelated. From the point of view of the air defense operations of the fleet, the 346 of the four-sided formation obviously has a certain advantage at the starting point.
Sampson was developed on the basis of the MESAR-2 single-sided fixed active phased array radar, and Sampson's original plan was to fix a four-sided array arrangement.
At present, China's leading industrial industry is galloping in the fast lane of the information age, and there is a relatively solid economic foundation to support it, and the environment and conditions are far from being comparable to those of the year. And in the context of the existence of a "strong potential threat", in the face of the severity of reality, driven by the increasingly urgent needs of China's national defense, the development prospects of the military electronics and machinery industry are worth optimism. We have reason to believe that the follow-up model of the 346, both in terms of hardware and back-end, will quickly narrow the gap with the advanced level in Europe and the United States. Here, we also hope that a series of military products that occupy a decisive position in China's national defense construction can achieve 100% "made by China" at an early date, no longer subject to others, and completely reverse the strategic passive situation of the production and logistics industry.
Considering the continuity of the project, we will further pave the road of this engineering technology more solidly, so as to become a hotbed for cultivating technical talents in this field. It is speculated that the bricks that look forward to the real big drive may skip the Gaas of the second-generation MMIC, and directly adopt one of the third-generation wide bandgap MMICs, gallium nitride (GaN), whose breakdown electric field voltage is several times and dozens of times that of silicon bipolar transistors and GaAs, which is beneficial to the active array to further improve the power density of the array. GaN also has better high-band operation than GaAS and better thermal stability, allowing it to operate at higher temperatures. As a microwave power amplifier, GaN will be a mainstream direction for the development of active arrays in the future.
052C cuts in from different points of hot and cold projectiles. When the cold launcher is launched, the bottom gas generator works to push the piston barrel and drive the pull rod to pull the missile, the missile is subjected to an instantaneous longitudinal large overload at this time, and when the hot launcher is launched, a part of the gas will be blocked back when it touches the lower sealing cover, and a pressure wave will run through the entire missile at the speed of sound, causing the transverse response vibration of the missile components, in order to cope with these two situations, the cold and hot launch bombs are considered differently at the beginning of the design, the reinforcement of the missile body and internal components is different.
In the foreseeable future, after the completion of the Beidou network, the further improvement of the data link and the real launch of the fixed-wing early warning aircraft into the sea, the veritable big drive carries a new generation of active air defense missiles with two-way data links, the coordinate information is handed over to Beidou and the data link, and the carrier synchronization work is handed over to the early warning aircraft and the data link, so as to realize the US Navy standard 6 + E2D+The GPS regional air defense system has the early warning aircraft to complete the correction of the mid-course command of the active air defense missile, so that the large drive has the ability to intercept targets below the horizon and further expand the scope of the regional air defense zone.
More than 100 years ago, due to the weakness of coastal defense, China's modern history has become an unforgettable and indelible pain for the Chinese people. In the 70 years of ups and downs of the Republic, the People's Navy has pulled anchor, set sail, and set sail in the mud of history, starting from scratch to the Yellow Water Navy, from the Yellow Water Navy to the Green Water Navy, and is marching towards the Blue Water Navy with its head held high. In the face of real challenges and potential threats, let us sincerely hope that the pace of China's naval construction will be accelerated day by day, and that our navy will go further!