The F-22 is hailed by the US military as the world's most formidable fighter, with a radar cross section (RCS) said to be only 1 square centimeter, equivalent to the size of a fingernail.
However, a joint research team led by Dr. Xie Junwei of the Air Force and Missile Defense College of the Air Force Engineering University in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, northern China, said they have found a new method that can make a stealth fighter with a configuration similar to the F-22 appear on radar screens with a signal strength equivalent to that of a conventional fighter with an RCS larger than 6 square meters - 60,000 times larger.
US Air Force F-22 Raptor fighter jet. (Photo: Reuters)
Their detection method covers a battlefield of about 63,000 square kilometers, ensuring that any F-22 maneuvers are always within the range of China's radar network, Xie's team said in a peer-reviewed paper published in the Beijing Aeronautical University Journal in late February.
The results of this research are considered to have the potential to significantly impact the combat effectiveness of the F-22, because the fighter's air-to-air missiles have a range of about 100 km and for smart bomb attacks on ground targets, the F-22 must be within a radius of 20 km from the target.
Additionally, the F-22 must avoid being detected or locked on by enemy defense systems before it can reach its effective attack range.
Mr. Xie's team said this new tracking technology allows China's radar system to pinpoint the F-22's location in real time with exceptional accuracy, with a minimum error of just under 20 meters. This information can then be quickly relayed to interceptors or air defense missiles.
Furthermore, the calculation of target coordinates and precise movement speed can be completed in just 0.008 seconds. According to the researchers, even in the case of an attack by a whole squadron of F-22s, detailed information about each aircraft can be collected in 0.02 seconds.
Challenges in real combat
In real combat situations, the radar signature of an enemy aircraft may differ from previously collected intelligence data. Changes in the aircraft's direction or altitude during flight can result in significant signal fluctuations, potentially causing the tracking system to lose track of the target.
To address this challenge, Ta’s team used multiple radars to scan for stealth fighters from different angles. While the idea is not entirely new, its implementation still faces significant obstacles, as detecting stealth targets typically requires significant resources to be deployed within a radar network. However, in real combat, the number of airborne targets can be very large, and a single radar can only allocate a fraction of its resources to detecting and tracking the F-22.
Dr. Ta’s team says they have overcome this longstanding technical challenge. Specifically, their “intelligent resource allocation scheduling” method allows a centralized radar network system to adjust the beam parameters and power of each radar based on the characteristics and real-time position changes of stealth aircraft in the battlefield.
This allows the system to concentrate its limited detection resources on the most exposed azimuth, or angle of arrival, of the stealth aircraft, significantly enhancing the intensity and accuracy of its radar signal tracking while ensuring it is continuously locked onto the target.
As a result, each radar only needs to use a small fraction of its frequency and power to track stealth aircraft, saving valuable resources to handle other targets.
According to the article, with just three radars, comprehensive and stable tracking of a squadron of F-22 fighters can be achieved.
The radars can be strategically deployed on land, islands, ships and even air platforms, enhancing China's anti-access and area denial capabilities in the South China Sea and Western Pacific regions.
A US F-22 stealth fighter flies over Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, South Korea. (Photo: Reuters)
The F-22's history dates back to the Cold War, but by the time the first F-22 was tested in 1997, the Soviet Union had collapsed.
Due to high costs and lack of competitors, the US government shut down the F-22 production line about a decade ago.
However, in recent years, China has significantly increased production of its J-20 heavy stealth fighter. In response, the US military has been working to improve the stealth and combat capabilities of its existing fleet of more than 100 F-22 fighters.
Chinese scientists and engineers have also recently developed anti-stealth aircraft technology, including deploying the world's largest constellation of optical observation satellites in low Earth orbit to track the F-22 in real time, and developing hypersonic air defense missiles with a range exceeding 2,000 kilometers.
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