China successfully develops 'converged energy' weapon

Chinese scientists have developed a new type of high-power microwave weapon. The weapon's output power is enhanced by combining electromagnetic waves with ultra-precise timing technology to attack a single target.

Experimental testing of the weapon system's military potential has been completed, including testing the deployment of multiple microwave transmitters to different locations. Once deployed, they emit microwaves that can be combined into a powerful beam of energy to attack a target.

The system is similar to the way the Death Star was destroyed in Star Wars. To accumulate the energy needed to destroy a planet, the massive space station needs to focus eight lasers into a single beam.

This idea is considered difficult to implement because electromagnetic waves from different transmission platforms need to converge to the same location, at the same time, and in the same form to achieve effective power combination.

According to the team's calculations, this requires each microwave vehicle to be deployed with a positional error of just a few millimeters, and the time synchronization error between them must not exceed 170 picoseconds, or trillionths of a second, more precise than the atomic clocks on GPS satellites.

Scientists and engineers have overcome these obstacles and built a system in western China that includes seven transmission vehicles. Experiments have confirmed that the device can "achieve multiple purposes such as teaching and training, verifying new technologies, and military exercises."

The technology was developed by the Xi'an Navigation Technology Research Institute under the China Electronics Technology Group Corporation, which is the main supplier of electronic warfare weapons to the People's Liberation Army.

Currently, most energy weapons used in the military operate independently. Due to limitations in maximum power output, these weapons “have not yet formed effective combat capabilities,” the project team wrote in a paper published in the Chinese academic journal Modern Navigation in October.

Theoretically, the distributed structure could allow the power of the attack beam to increase infinitely. According to some previous research estimates, when the power of a directed energy weapon reaches one gigawatt, it could cause serious damage to satellites in low-Earth orbit.

Ngoc Anh (according to SCMP)