Chinese scientists say they have made converged energy beam weapon a reality

Trials have been completed on a new weapon system that directs a number of high-powered beams onto a single target

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Chinese scientists are bringing a converged energy beam weapon from fiction to life. Image: Lucasfilm/Disney

Published: 10:00pm, 4 Nov 2024Updated: 3:02pm, 5 Nov 2024

A new type of high-power microwave weapon, which combines electromagnetic waves with ultra-precise timing technology to boost power output to attack a single target, has been developed by Chinese scientists.

The weapon system, which has completed experimental trials on its potential military use, consists of multiple microwave-transmitting vehicles deployed to different locations. They then emit microwaves that can merge into a powerful energy beam to attack one target.

This is similar to the Death Star seen in the Star Wars films. To build up the energy required to destroy a planet, the vast space station needs to converge eight laser rays into a single beam.

This idea has been considered difficult to bring to life, as electromagnetic waves from different transmitting platforms need to arrive at the same location at the same time and in the same form to achieve effective power combination.

According to the research team’s calculations, this requires each microwave vehicle to be deployed with a positional error reduced to mere millimetres, and the time synchronisation error between them cannot exceed 170 picoseconds, or trillionths of a second, which is more precise than the atomic clocks on GPS satellites.

Scientists and engineers have overcome these obstacles and built a system in western China consisting of seven transmitting vehicles. Experiments have confirmed that the device can effectively suppress the signals of American GPS and other satellites, “achieving multiple goals such as teaching and training, new technology verification, and military exercises”.

The researchers connected the timing devices on the transmitting platforms with optical fibres to achieve “ultra-high time precision synchronisation”.