J-20 5th Gen Fighter Thread VIII

iewgnem

Captain
Registered Member
Except for the difference of course that the speeds, distances and altitudes of the respective platform and targets that each is oriented towards.

The problem I have with your suggestion is it implies that the same technologies on a consumer quadcopter drone (as advanced as they are) could offer a major capability uplift if they were transplanted to a military fighter jet.
Cameras work in pixel and angular domain, spatial distances don't really matter. Infact target discrimination in IR against mostly cold background is much easier than optical discrimination at low altitudes against a cluttered background.

Obviously military equipment has their unique set of requirements, but physics work the same no matter if you're civilian or military, the distinction between military and civilian technology is often not nearly as big as most people think.

Case in point fighter EODAs sensor fusion obviously have added requirement to defeat dazzlers and targets that actively try to prevent tracking, and might have filters to discriminate missiles from aircraft, but at end of the day you're still tracking aerial targets and then taking action based on tracking data, the technology isn't fundamentally different.
 

latenlazy

Brigadier
Cameras work in pixel and angular domain, spatial distances don't really matter. Infact target discrimination in IR against mostly cold background is much easier than optical discrimination at low altitudes against a cluttered background.

Obviously military equipment has their unique set of requirements, but physics work the same no matter if you're civilian or military, the distinction between military and civilian technology is often not nearly as big as most people think.

Case in point fighter EODAs sensor fusion obviously have added requirement to defeat dazzlers and targets that actively try to prevent tracking, and might have filters to discriminate missiles from aircraft, but at end of the day you're still tracking aerial targets and then taking action based on tracking data, the technology isn't fundamentally different.
From an electrical engineering standpoint the main performance stressor should be maintaining high scanning speed for your imaging sensor while preserving high data bandwidth in conjunction with various electromagnetic hardening requirements. In terms of comparability I think it depends on which part of the stack we’re discussing. I think on the processing side the performance determinants should be pretty comparable between consumer and military. Not as sure that holds lower on the stack.
 

Blitzo

General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
Cameras work in pixel and angular domain, spatial distances don't really matter. Infact target discrimination in IR against mostly cold background is much easier than optical discrimination at low altitudes against a cluttered background.

Obviously military equipment has their unique set of requirements, but physics work the same no matter if you're civilian or military, the distinction between military and civilian technology is often not nearly as big as most people think.

Case in point fighter EODAs sensor fusion obviously have added requirement to defeat dazzlers and targets that actively try to prevent tracking, and might have filters to discriminate missiles from aircraft, but at end of the day you're still tracking aerial targets and then taking action based on tracking data, the technology isn't fundamentally different.

Distances absolutely do matter; the ability to discriminate a target from 20m away is different from the ability to discriminate a target 20km away. which is very different from the ability to discriminate a target from 200km away. The number of targets meant to be processed and managed at once and linked in and correlated with other sensors (radar, ESM) to ensure nil duplicated tracks, are also different.

If one wants to suggest that there are civilian domain technologies which may have some degree of applicability or benefit in military domains, that is fine, but comparing the number of sensors on a DJI drone with a F-35 or a SU7 car with a J-20 directly like that is the equivalent of comparing a Roomba's sensors with a modern IFV -- sure there's some cross pollination and "overlap" in technology but trying to infer or boast about how capable a military product may be due to a consumer civilian product, is nonsensical.


Putting it another way, if one wants to argue that the capability of J-20's EO suite is probably quite competitive, you are almost certainly going to be weakening your argument by saying "look at how good DJI's drones or Xiaomi's cars are".
 

sanctionsevader

New Member
Registered Member
Putting it another way, if one wants to argue that the capability of J-20's EO suite is probably quite competitive, you are almost certainly going to be weakening your argument by saying "look at how good DJI's drones or Xiaomi's cars are".
Seems entirely plausible that Chinese hardware/software companies saw a lot of benefit from the huge PRC defense patent disclosures (done specifically to rapidly improve civilian tech and civil-military fusion) that took place pretty much right before the world started seeing massive shift in how advanced Chinese civilian hardware/software was (2017-now).
 
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