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ChinaScience

China’s powerful advanced sonar systems are now small enough to fit on unmanned submersibles

  • What may be world’s smallest phased array sonar means ultrasonic energy is no longer restricted to larger vessels
  • Low-cost, technologically advanced system could give China maritime power edge over US unmanned smart weapons

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Engineers say China’s new advances could soon enable the country’s smaller unmanned submersibles to be equipped with high-powered phased array sonar. Photo: Shutterstock
Stephen Chenin Beijing

Chinese scientists have shrunk the size of a high-powered phased array sonar system into something compact enough to fit inside a shoebox, enabling it to be mounted on a small unmanned submersible.

Previously, such advanced sonar systems could only be installed on warships or large submarines due to their size.

Zhu Jianjun, an associate professor from the National Key Laboratory of Underwater Acoustic Technology at Harbin Engineering University, said his team had developed what may be the world’s smallest phased array sonar, adding that it “has great potential for use on underwater platforms”.

“In recent years, there has been an increasing demand for small underwater mobile platforms for near-seabed acoustic observation and surveying,” Zhu said in a peer-reviewed paper published in the Chinese academic journal Applied Acoustics on February 5.

Despite its small size, the researchers said the 15kg (33lbs) sonar device is capable of generating sound waves of up to 238 decibels, an intensity comparable to the noise produced by the Saturn V rocket used in the Apollo programme.

The direction and frequency of the sonic beams can be quickly adjusted, and when high-frequency sound waves converge in one direction, they can even penetrate the soil of the seabed or the outer wall of a submarine, achieving high-resolution detection of hidden targets, according to the researchers.

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