14/08/2019
- Developers say their prototype craft could dive to 1,000 metres in five minutes
- Liu Kaizhou, who also worked the Jiaolong submersible, says ‘We are in uncharted water’
Professor Liu Kaizhou, who developed the autopilot for China’s manned Jiaolong submersible, says his team has designed a vessel that can move through water like a plane moves through the air. Photo: Xinhua
Chinese engineers say they are developing a radical design for a super-fast robot submersible which the project leader, who worked on the manned deep-sea vessel Jiaolong, or Sea Dragon, claims can “fly” in water like a plane travels through the air.
At 3 metres (9.8ft) long, the prototype consists of a cigar-shaped body, with a guidance system in the bow and a jet plane style rudder and a propeller in the stern.
Outriggers house batteries and two more propellers. These are attached to the body by wing-like planes that the developers said will give the vessel the kind of lift in water that takes an aeroplane into the air and back to the earth.
Developers said the prototype will be capable of 10 knots and could dive to a depth of 1,000 metres (3,281 feet) – or surface from that depth – at about three metres a second, taking about 5½ minutes.
Professor Liu Kaizhou, lead scientist of the project at the Shenyang Institute of Automation, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Liaoning province, said the design had great potential.
If a traditional submarine was like an air balloon, he said, the prototype was like an aircraft. “It is technically flying, fast and freely, like a plane for the water.”
The prototype has 20 major components on board, including a computer, and communications and surveillance equipment. These were all developed and tested by the team, but getting them to work together posed some unexpected challenges, Liu said, meaning the transition to operations in a tough marine environment was some time away.
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“We aim to make the first open sea test in about a year,” he said.
The submersible can be powered by conventional batteries or a chemical engine that mixes lithium and sulphur hexafluoride to produce heated steam for electrical generators – an energy source often used by torpedoes.
Funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology from 2017, the project was driven by China’s growing ambition to become a superpower in the world’s oceans.
The team said their submersible had the potential to become the backbone of China’s search-and-rescue operations at sea, naval intelligence gathering, high-precision sea floor mapping, or to transport minerals from the seabed to the surface.
Professor Liu Kaizhou (left) with colleagues Ye Cong and Yang Bo, was instrumental in the success of China’s Jiaolong manned submersible. Photo: Xinhua
Professor Du Tezhuan, a researcher in fluid dynamics at the Institute of Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, said the design was a bold one but it posed the research team many hard questions.
The density of water was much higher than that of air, he said, which meant the vessel would encounter more drag and would need a strong power source.
“Without sufficient speed, the lift will be weak, and to reach high speeds, lots of energy will be needed. Flying in water is not as easy as flying in the air,” said Du, who was not involved in the project.
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“But in theory it should work. It is worth a try.”
Liu – who led the design of the autopilot system that can take the Jiaolong to depths of more than 7,000 metres (23,000 ft) – said that after tests on the prototype were complete, other innovations were possible. These included covering the vessel with air bubbles to reduce friction.
“This technology is brand new,” he said. “We are in uncharted water and we are excited by the challenges.”
Source: SCMP
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11/04/2019
- Links between company accused of receiving confidential information and Beijing, according to report
- Investigation follows US court ruling against six Chinese employees of semiconductor maker ASML
A newspaper in the Netherlands claims to have found evidence that six employees of Dutch semiconductor giant ASML passed corporate secrets to a company linked to the Chinese government. Photo: AFP
An investigation by a financial newspaper in the Netherlands has concluded that Chinese employees stole corporate secrets from Dutch semiconductor equipment giant ASML, resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars in losses.
The daily newspaper, Het Financieele Dagblad, reported on Thursday that ASML itself had “found no hard proof of involvement of the Chinese government” but that its own probe had determined that stolen technology had been ultimately leaked to a state-linked company.
According to the newspaper report, high-level Chinese employees in the research and development department of ASML’s US subsidiary were behind the breach.
An ASML spokeswoman said the company was aware of the report and was preparing a response.
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ASML is the dominant maker of lithography systems, used to trace out the circuitry of semiconductor chips.
The newspaper based its report partly on company sources and partly on a November 2018 ruling by a California court in a suit between ASML’s US subsidiary and a subsidiary of a Chinese company, XTAL Inc.
The documents from the California Superior Court in Santa Clara show six former ASML employees, all with Chinese names, breached their employment contracts by sharing information on ASML software processes with XTAL, according to the report.
“The FD’s investigation found XTAL’s Chinese parent company Dongfang Jingyuan has ties with the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology,” the newspaper said.
The court awarded ASML US$223 million in damages and XTAL filed for bankruptcy a month later.
The Dutch intelligence agency has included warnings in its annual threat assessments for the past several years, saying that China is targeting tech companies in the Netherlands, as it does in other countries, for intellectual property theft.
In 2015, ASML disclosed a breach of its computer systems, but said at the time damage from the hack was limited and released few further details.
ASML’s sales to China doubled to 1.8 billion euros (US$2 billion) in 2018 from 919 million euros in 2017 as Beijing makes growth of its semiconductor industry a priority.
ASML CEO Peter Wennink said in January he saw no let-up in demand from China, despite an economic slowdown.
Source: SCMP
Posted in ASML CEO, Beijing, California Superior Court, China alert, Chinese company, XTAL Inc, Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology, Dongfang Jingyuan, Dutch chip machinery giant, Het Financieele Dagblad, intellectual property theft, Peter Wennink, Santa Clara, semiconductor maker ASML, spies, the Netherlands, Uncategorized |
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