Chinese Airborne Radars

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Click the button marked "attach files" and attach files

 

[skyman]

Pic1 is TYPE226 radar in J-7 (Mig-21), I bought these about 450 USD ， I will donate to museum
pic2 and pic3 is chinese version RP-5 "Izumrud-5" radar displaymaybe SL-2 .only display so I didnot buy it （100 USD）

 

[F-2]

I came across this interesting post trying to ground the J-10 radar in the Al-31 power generation and someone posted a Chinese document. F seems to be the J-10C radar and G one of the Flanker variants

https://twitter.com/x/status/2091582237158547589

View: https://x.com/MasterW01426753/status/2091582237158547589

 

[F-2]

Academician Ben De explains how the 1471 radar broke through Western technological blockade.​

He is her island bear
2026-07-14 23:31Sichuan
0
Academician Ben De, who cured the "nearsightedness" of China's fighter jet radar, has been awarded the 2025 State Top Science and Technology Award. Recently, the "2025 State Top Science and Technology Award" was announced in Beijing, and Academician Ben De, as a pioneer in radar technology, received this highest honor in China's scientific community.

Open NetEase News to see amazing pictures

Ben De, of Manchu ethnicity, is a senior chief scientist at the 14th Research Institute of China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC) (a top radar research institute in China). Born in April 1938 in Jiutai District, Changchun, Jilin Province, he graduated from Harbin Institute of Technology in 1963 with a major in radar technology. He was then assigned to the 14th Research Institute of CETC, where he served as director of the General Engineering Department, director of the Airborne Radar Department, and deputy director. He was elected an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering in 2001. Academician Ben De's three major achievements are leading the development of my country's first ultra-long-range phased array early warning radar, my country's first airborne pulse-Doppler (PD) fire control radar with independent intellectual property rights—the 1471 radar, and the more advanced space-based radar.

The remarkable achievement of China's fighter jet fire control radar going from lagging behind Italy to surpassing the United States largely depends on the research results of Bende.

In the 1970s, China faced encirclement by two major military blocs in the East and West, resulting in enormous national defense pressure. In particular, the Soviet MiG-23 fighter jets and Tu-22M "Backfire" bombers posed a great threat to China's northern regions with their beyond-visual-range attacks and low-altitude penetration capabilities. However, for a long time, the Chinese military's fighter jets lacked beyond-visual-range air combat and look-down/shoot-down capabilities.

Open NetEase News to see amazing pictures
At that time, the J-6 series was still the mainstay fighter jet of the Chinese Air Force, and the J-7 family did not enter service until the late 1970s. The J-6 was only a transonic fighter jet, and its main weapons were cannons and air-to-air rockets. Only a very small number of them could carry PL-1 radio-guided air-to-air missiles or PL-2 infrared-guided air-to-air missiles.

Moreover, most J-6s only have a Fire-Target-1 rangefinder installed below the air intake. This device is not a fire control radar; it can only measure distances and cannot search for targets. It can only be used after the pilot visually detects the enemy aircraft.


In other words, at that time, most of our military's fighter jets lacked all-weather combat capabilities, let alone beyond-visual-range air combat and look-down/shoot-down capabilities. Even the Type 204 airborne fire control radar, which was under development at the time, was a single-pulse fire control radar developed based on the MiG-21 "Sapphire" radar, with a maximum detection range of only 18-20 kilometers and no look-down capability.

Open NetEase News to see amazing pictures
Under these circumstances, the Air Force urgently requested the development of a downward-looking, medium-range guided PD radar. However, at that time, only the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and France possessed this technology, and all of them imposed strict blockades on my country.


The Air Force ultimately approved the 14th Institute's plan and officially issued the research and development task in 1979, codenamed Project 1471. Ben De was appointed as the chief designer in a time of crisis and began preliminary research and development.

The biggest challenge for the 1471 radar is not beyond visual range, but downward look-down. The signal strength of ground clutter is dozens of times higher than that of fighter jet echoes. Extracting weak target signals from strong clutter is comparable to "listening to the sound of falling leaves in a storm." Therefore, Bende's team, taking into account the actual situation of China's semiconductor industry, proposed a two-step solution: prioritizing the development of medium- to low pulse repetition frequencies. Medium pulse repetition frequencies have excellent ranging and velocity measurement capabilities, making them suitable for detecting low-altitude targets.

In this way, we can focus our efforts on solving the problem of "going from 0 to 1" in the downward vision first, and then make up for the high pulse repetition frequency later.

While Project 1471 was underway, my country also launched Project Peace Pearl, which aimed to import the American AN/APG-66 radar to modify the J-8II fighter jet. However, the United States refused to provide any technology, only selling finished products, and unilaterally terminated the project in 1989.

The failure of the PD radar import route forced my country to rely on its own 1471 radar to fill the gap in combat readiness. Ben De suddenly found himself in a do-or-die situation, with unprecedented pressure. The team had to give up holidays and work around the clock under rudimentary conditions. Lacking a large computer, they used hand-cranked calculators and pen and paper to derive algorithms.

Ben De worked almost non-stop for more than a decade, and even risked his life to step forward at critical moments. When he was nearly fifty years old, he insisted on personally boarding the plane to test the radar signal. He encountered dangerous situations such as engine stalling and landing gear failure many times, but he never backed down.

After 16 years of unremitting efforts, the Type 1471 radar was finally finalized in 1995.

Open NetEase News to see amazing pictures
Through Project 1471, my country has overcome key technologies such as planar slotted array antennas, grating-controlled traveling wave tube transmitters, low-to-medium pulse repetition frequency clutter suppression, and analog signal processing. Among these, two technologies are of paramount importance: First, the high-power grating-controlled traveling wave tube, as the core of the radar transmitter, is the hardware foundation for achieving long-range detection.

Bende's team overcame numerous challenges, solving a series of problems such as precision machining of the grid, high-power heat dissipation, and high-voltage insulation, finally achieving the requirement of providing approximately 50kW peak power to the radar using domestically produced grid-controlled traveling wave tubes. Secondly, regarding the planar slotted array antenna, by precisely controlling the amplitude and phase of the electromagnetic waves radiated from each slot, extremely low sidelobes can be easily achieved, thereby effectively suppressing ground clutter.

Due to insufficient precision machining capabilities, the planar slotted array antenna of the 1471 radar did not meet the design requirements until 1987, but it still surpassed the Soviet Union at the time.

Open NetEase News to see amazing pictures
The finalized 1471 radar uses a 700 mm diameter planar slotted array antenna, operates in the X-band, and has a detection range of 75 km against fighter targets with an RCS of 5 square meters. In look-down mode (filtered ground clutter), the detection range is about 50 km. It was the first to lock onto a low-altitude penetrating enemy aircraft amidst ground clutter.

The PL-11 semi-active radar can relay and guide medium-range air-to-air missiles, giving the J-8 series fighter jets practical beyond-visual-range air combat capabilities for the first time. However, the groundbreaking 1471 radar has several shortcomings, such as a wide beam, poor resolution, lack of high pulse repetition frequency waveforms, susceptibility to losing high-speed targets, and a lack of ground and sea attack modes.

However, the 1471 completed the transformation of China's PD radar from 0 to 1, solved the toughest problem, paved the way for later generations, and opened up the "Ren and Du meridians" of the entire domestic airborne fire control radar, which then took off.

Open NetEase News to see amazing pictures
Today, our military's fighter jets have been equipped with gallium nitride radars, while the US military's gallium nitride radars have been slow to be put into practical use, and even delivered F-35s without radars.

The pioneering role of the 1471 radar cannot be underestimated, because even in the 1980s, China's airborne fire control radar was not only inferior to that of the United States, Russia, Britain, France, and Sweden, but even Italy's Grifo radar, developed in the 1980s, adopted a planar slotted array antenna and had look-down and shoot-down capabilities.

From lagging behind and being relatively unknown like Italy to surpassing the United States, my country's airborne fire control radar has achieved a historic reversal, and Academician Ben De played a decisive pioneering role in this process

50kw Peak power and 300w average power.
https://m.163.com/dy/article/L1R8F2QH0556BUZH.html?spss=adap_pc

Academician Ben De's 1471 airborne PD radar offers a comprehensive upgrade plan,

combining quantitative, qualitative, and interactive transformation principles. Simply increasing transmission power and expanding antenna aperture represent a shallow quantitative change. Only by adjusting material energy levels, antenna structure, signal processing dimensions, and system-wide coordination can a qualitative change be achieved, thus thoroughly resolving inherent shortcomings such as insufficient detection range, downward clutter, weak anti-stealth capabilities, and poor anti-interference. The plan is detailed in three layers: short-term in-situ upgrade, mid-term system iteration, and long-term next-generation cutting-edge technology, all of which are feasible for engineering implementation.

I. Short-term in-situ modification (no change to the overall radar structure, lowest cost, direct replacement for existing models)

1. Signal processing system algorithm upgrade (addressing core shortcomings)

The original 1471 radar lacked digital pulse compression technology, resulting in a 20% lower detection range compared to the subsequent 1473 radar with the same antenna size.

1. Adding a digital pulse compression module
with linear frequency modulation (LFM) matched filtering increases pulse peak gain by 300 times, reducing range resolution from hundreds of meters to within 10 meters; the upward-looking detection range is increased from 75km to 92km, matching the maximum range of the PL-11 missile, solving the mismatch problem of "radar not being able to see far, missile not being able to hit far".
2. Multi-repetition frequency intelligent optimization algorithm
introduces a genetic algorithm for automatic optimization of multi-dimensional repetition frequency groups, eliminating distance and velocity ambiguity; adaptive switching of high, medium, and low repetition frequencies automatically matches waveforms for low altitude, plateau, and sea surfaces, increasing the clear detection range at low altitudes by 45%.
3. Adaptive Zonal Clutter Suppression (STAP):
The original radar relied on fixed filters, and non-stationary clutter in mountainous and sea areas easily obscured low-altitude targets. A new two-dimensional space-time adaptive filter was added, with separate orthogonal projection noise reduction in near-range strong clutter areas, increasing the downward-looking detection range from 50km to 68km and improving the probability of intercepting low-altitude drones and cruise missiles by 60%.
4. AI Constant False Alarm Rate Detection:
Equipped with a lightweight neuromorphic chip, it distinguishes between clouds, rain, sea waves, building clutter, and real aircraft, reducing the false alarm rate by 90% and minimizing frequent false alarms in adverse weather conditions.

2. Minor Antenna Structure Optimization (Digital Change: Adjusting the array structure without altering the overall size):

1. Secondary precision milling of the planar slotted array reduced the sidelobe level from -22dB to -35dB, significantly reducing the energy of ground-reflected clutter entering the receiver;
2. Spraying a cage-like lattice metamaterial absorbing film onto the antenna surface reduced the antenna's own radar echo by 70%, slightly improving the overall stealth of the fighter jet, while also suppressing antenna mutual coupling interference.

3. Transmitter power and energy consumption optimization:

The original grid-controlled traveling wave tube had high loss and poor heat dissipation;

1. The core adopts a reverse metal-free active template chemical molding process, which is resistant to high temperature, reduces electronic loss by 25%, and increases peak power from 50kW to 62kW;
2. Adding an amorphous alloy high-frequency transformer improves power conversion efficiency by 18%, reduces overall heat generation, and reduces the load on the airborne cooling system.

II. Mid-term overall system deep iteration (replacing core hardware, adapting the platform to early J-8 and J-10 models, and achieving a leapfrog qualitative change in performance)

(I) Antenna array system reconstruction (structural changes, mechanical scanning improvement scheme)

1. Lightweight composite sandwich planar slotted antenna with
titanium alloy-carbon fiber sandwich structure, reducing antenna weight by 32%, reducing nose load, and reducing aerodynamic drag of the fighter jet; gain is increased by 12% under the same aperture.
2. Multi-beam time-division scanning architecture:
Single mechanical scanning can only track targets in one direction. Upgrading to time-division multi-beam allows simultaneous tracking of 8 aerial targets. The original radar could only stably track 2 multiple targets, resulting in a qualitative change in multi-target engagement capability.

(II) Comprehensive Upgrade of Semiconductor Power Devices (Energy Level Change, Breakthrough in Core Performance Ceiling)

The original radar used a vacuum traveling wave tube, which was large in size, short in life, and had a low power limit.

1. Replacing the traveling wave tube with gallium nitride (GaN) solid-state transceiver components
increases power density tenfold, doubles the average transmit power of the entire system, and directly increases the detection range by 40%; the upper limit of operating temperature is increased to 220℃, there is no power attenuation during high-altitude and high-speed flight, the module life is extended from 2000 hours to 8000 hours, and maintenance costs are reduced by 60%.
2. The receiver is upgraded with a wide dynamic range linear circuit, which is resistant to electromagnetic interference overload and will not black out or lose lock when facing the jamming interference of EA-18G electronic warfare aircraft.

(III) Integrated Multimodal Waveform Design:

The original radar only had a single PD waveform, which could not simultaneously address anti-stealth, ground mapping, and maritime search.

1. Integrating a broadband chaotic agile waveform with 100,000 random frequency hoppings per second, enemy jammers cannot lock onto the radar frequency, resulting in a sharp drop in jamming suppression efficiency of 85%.
2. Adding a synthetic aperture mapping mode, which combines air combat fire control and ground reconnaissance, eliminating the need for fighter jets to carry additional electro-optical reconnaissance pods.

(IV) Supporting Avionics Coordination Upgrade (Optimized Connection Structure, Enhanced System Coordination)

: 1. Equipped with a small quantum global resonance communication module, radar detection data is synchronized in real time with early warning aircraft, friendly aircraft, and ground air defense networks, with no delay and no electromagnetic shielding.
2. Data fusion between radar and airborne electro-optical and infrared equipment, after electro-optical locking onto low-altitude stealth targets, guides the radar to accurately detect with a narrow beam, solving the problem of radar echo weakening caused by the radar-absorbing coating of stealth fighters.

III. Long-Term Transcendental Upgrade (Integrating Extraterrestrial Civilization Engineering Principles, Completely Overcoming the Limitations of Traditional PD Systems)

1. Gallium Oxide (Ga₂O₃) Fourth-Generation Semiconductor Array (High-Energy Material Innovation):

A gallium oxide transceiver unit with a cage-like lattice substrate boasts a power density 15 times that of gallium nitride and a volume reduction of 2/3; capable of detecting stealth targets as small as 0.001㎡ (B-2, F-35) at 800km; resistant to temperatures up to 500℃; high-speed, long-endurance operation with no power loss; a core underlying material for anti-stealth systems.

2. Microwave Photonic Radar Front-End Replaces Traditional RF Circuits (Dimensional Upgrade, Photonic Information Transmission):

Replacing electrical signals with optical signals to transmit radar waveforms increases instantaneous bandwidth by a hundredfold, enabling the identification of minute serrations and skin seams on stealth aircraft surfaces; overall weight reduced by 50%; no electromagnetic crosstalk; continuous and stable detection in strong electronic warfare environments; corresponding to the implementation of extraterrestrial civilization's quantum global resonance no-attenuation law engineering.

3. The ultimate route to passive/active phased array (a fundamental shift from mechanical scanning to electronic scanning):

Completely eliminating the 1471 mechanical rotating antenna, integrating a gallium nitride active phased array on the nose:

- Beam agility without inertia, enabling simultaneous engagement of multiple targets and simultaneous search in multiple directions;
- Frequency-band composite detection (X+meter-wave coplanar array), directly penetrating stealth coatings in the meter-wave band, fundamentally solving the historical shortcoming of fighter jet radar being "nearsighted and unable to see stealth aircraft," achieving the ultimate goal of surpassing the United States that Academician Ben De failed to achieve.

4. Global field-assisted detection (derived from three-dimensional Gouk Planet artificial field technology):

Micro-gravitational resonant field generators are installed on both sides of the nose, fine-tuning the local spatial field, amplifying weak target echo signals by 3 times, significantly reducing the detection threshold in ultra-low altitude, sea clutter, and mountainous environments, compensating for the natural loss of electromagnetic wave propagation.

IV. Summary and Demonstration Based on the Core Principles of "Thinking Roadmap":

1. Limitations of Quantitative Change
: Simply increasing the power of the traveling wave tube, thickening the antenna metal plate, and extending the scanning time can only slightly improve the detection distance, leading to a chain of defects such as a surge in heat generation, excessive head weight, and excessive energy consumption. Performance has an insurmountable ceiling, representing inefficient and shallow quantitative change.
2. Degree Change is the Core Upgrade Path:
This upgrade revolves around adjustments to five dimensions of degree:

- Structural Degree: Antenna sandwich composite structure, STAP partitioned filtering structure reconstruction;
- Energy Level Degree: Traveling wave tube → Gallium nitride → Gallium oxide semiconductor energy levels are progressively improved;
- Dimensionality Degree: Electrical signal processing → Photonic information dimension, electromagnetic wave detection + gravitational field-assisted multi-dimensional perception;
- Positional Degree: Single target tracking → Multi-beam time-division parallel tracking, radar-optoelectronic-early warning aircraft collaborative positional reconstruction;
- Connectivity Degree: Single airborne radar → Air-space-ground network information interconnection.
By adjusting only the "degree" parameter, without significantly increasing hardware volume and weight, a comprehensive qualitative leap in detection range, anti-stealth, anti-jamming, and multi-target capabilities can be achieved.

3. The
next-generation radar, after the degree change iteration of gallium nitride and photonic front end, will establish a new air combat detection standard, initiating a new round of quantitative change iteration with lightweight, high integration, and multi-spectrum capabilities, forming a perpetual evolutionary closed loop of quantitative change ↔ degree change ↔ qualitative change.
4. The laws of civilization corroborate
the universal engineering principles that pulse compression, quantum communication, field signal amplification, and cage-like lattice metamaterials all correspond to the verification of advanced civilizations on Planet Gurkha and in three-dimensional interstellar space. This proves that this radar iteration logic has universal engineering applicability across the entire universe and is also the underlying technological foundation for China's airborne radar to continuously surpass the United States.

V. Phased Cost-Effectiveness Implementation Recommendations

1. Current J-8 series: Prioritize short-term algorithm + in-situ antenna modification, with low investment and short modification cycle, quickly making up for the shortcomings in medium-range air combat;
2. Mid-term second and third generation aircraft platforms: Iterate the entire aircraft with gallium nitride solid-state transmitter + multi-beam array, fully benchmarking against and surpassing the US military's AN/APG-68 radar of the same period;
3. New fourth/fifth generation aircraft platforms: Directly adopt photonic active phased array + gallium oxide materials, achieving a generational lead over US radar in one step, and fulfilling the long-term goal set by Academician Ben De to "surpass the US airborne radar".

https://www.sina.cn/news/detail/5319755302700838.html