Thats true
News on China's scientific and technological development.
- Thread starter Quickie
- Start date
Thats true
lcloo
Captain
Is it possible the Chinese scientists in US have free hands to choose their research, and also have access to better facilities and data base?
Those in mainland China could be restricted in their choice of research in compliance to national needs and job allocations by government. And I will not be surprise they may prefer to keep their discoveries a state secret, since most top scientists worked for the government.
Those in mainland China could be restricted in their choice of research in compliance to national needs and job allocations by government. And I will not be surprise they may prefer to keep their discoveries a state secret, since most top scientists worked for the government.
zoom
Junior Member
China's 3D bus moves forward
looks like they are getting serious about this idea. ( couldn't find old posts on this)
"China's new 3D fast bus that can carry passengers above street level and straddle the lanes below to allow traffic to pass freely underneath has just passed the security assessment made by professional organizations and will be put into pilot use in Beijing's Mentougou District by the end of 2011."
looks like they are getting serious about this idea. ( couldn't find old posts on this)
"China's new 3D fast bus that can carry passengers above street level and straddle the lanes below to allow traffic to pass freely underneath has just passed the security assessment made by professional organizations and will be put into pilot use in Beijing's Mentougou District by the end of 2011."
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
Coming soon to the store near you Chinese Audio Video product
Chinese electronics manufacturers are thinking big and are moving swiftly up the value chain. Mr Letheren, 50, who is in charge of product development at the company, has just been treated to a glimpse into the future according to China.
While his team of engineers in London have been beavering away on the latest CD players, iPod docks and home cinema amplifiers, Chinese companies are thinking big.
In Qingdao, he visited Haier, the world’s largest white goods maker, and Hisense, a TV and digital set-top box manufacturer.
“These big companies are already looking at networking houses and networking appliances. They are working with new technology. Their background may be in refrigeration, but they are already doing TVs, traffic control, smart homes. The speed they can develop at is astounding,” he says.
For decades now, manufacturing has moved to China because it was cheap. Audio Partnership was founded in the early 1990s, partly by Julian Richer, the owner of Richer Sounds, in order to take advantage of the trend.
Its hi-fi brands, which include Cambridge Audio and Mordaunt Short, are designed by a British team but made by 12 Chinese factories in Guangdong province. Last year the company had revenues of £22m, recording 30pc growth in exports of its Cambridge Audio brand despite the global downturn.
“We realised we had to get a high quality product manufactured in China in order to get the right product and pricing for a demanding Western market. We were one of the first to come out here, in 1992,” says Mr Letheren.
Other hi-fi brands, which tried to maintain their factories in the UK, quickly came unstuck. Quad, founded in 1936, Wharfedale, from 1932, Mission and Castle, both founded in the 1970s, and Audiolab, a 1980s success story, are now all owned by IAG, a Taiwanese firm based in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen.
Now, however, Chinese manufacturers are moving swiftly up the value chain. “These companies are well and truly aware of what the technology needs to do and it will only be a matter of time before they are developing genuinely world-beating products,” says Mr Letheren.
“They have access to an enormous number of high-quality graduates. Even the very small manufacturer I met had taken on five post-graduate designers and he told me he was looking for something for them to do. I would struggle to do that, both with the cost and with actually finding and recruiting the available talent I need in London” he adds. “You will still find the experts with real in-depth marketing and product knowledge in the UK, but in terms of raw engineering skills, China is in a different league.”
If you doubt that Chinese manufacturers are now at the cutting edge, consider some of the products that Haier, once a cheap airconditioner and washing machine company, is about to release onto the market.
For your home, it has a 3D television that you do not need to plug into the wall. Instead, it runs off electricity that is transmitted to it wirelessly. Upstairs, you may wish to install one of Haier’s PowerPads, going on sale next month, in your bathroom. Sitting on the floor of the shower, it captures the heat of the water draining away and converts it back into electricity to power your boiler. Haier reckons it can capture 20pc to 30pc of the energy coming out of the tap.
Meanwhile, in the kitchen, your internet-connected refrigerator can monitor the freshness of your food and even tell you what to eat, depending on your body type. Haier’s heaters, washing machines, televisions and other appliances will also soon be connected to the web, allowing you to turn them on or off from the garden, the office, or wherever else you wish.
This 'smart home’ concept is partly why Mr Letheren is in China. He’s hoping to piggyback into the homes of the future using the systems set up by Chinese behemoth manufacturers.
“We will stream audio over the network to speakers that are smaller and more discreet. There are quite a few interesting angles. Multi-room systems can distribute audio and video around the house. There are some synergies with some very big appliance manufacturers,” he says.
The other reason is more worrying. Audio Partnership is now trying to find a Chinese company to help it design its products. Not only, it seems, has manufacturing migrated to the East, but design skills, once the pride of London, are also becoming cheaper to find in China.
“I am looking for design skills and maybe companies that are doing overlapping products so that we can use some of our technology with some of theirs,” he says. As hi-fi companies move away from traditional boxy sets towards wireless technology and iPod-integrated systems, it makes sense for companies to rely on Chinese firms to roll-out new designs.
Especially since the buyers of these new products may well turn out to be the Chinese themselves.
“Our market [here] is growing rapidly but it is very clear after my visit here that there is the potential to be doing a lot more,” says Mr Letheren.
“It is very clear that there is a large number of Chinese that have got significant disposable income and that they are eager buyers of luxury goods and that includes their entertainment system,” he adds.
Trying to work out Chinese tastes from the UK is a tricky proposition, so a local partner is required.
“I want to find someone flexible and small enough that we can make a contribution to the business,” says Mr Letheren. “We’ve got to accept that Western culture and fashion is different from China’s. But we are being told time and time again that they do still look up to Western brands.”
Chinese electronics manufacturers are thinking big and are moving swiftly up the value chain. Mr Letheren, 50, who is in charge of product development at the company, has just been treated to a glimpse into the future according to China.
While his team of engineers in London have been beavering away on the latest CD players, iPod docks and home cinema amplifiers, Chinese companies are thinking big.
In Qingdao, he visited Haier, the world’s largest white goods maker, and Hisense, a TV and digital set-top box manufacturer.
“These big companies are already looking at networking houses and networking appliances. They are working with new technology. Their background may be in refrigeration, but they are already doing TVs, traffic control, smart homes. The speed they can develop at is astounding,” he says.
For decades now, manufacturing has moved to China because it was cheap. Audio Partnership was founded in the early 1990s, partly by Julian Richer, the owner of Richer Sounds, in order to take advantage of the trend.
Its hi-fi brands, which include Cambridge Audio and Mordaunt Short, are designed by a British team but made by 12 Chinese factories in Guangdong province. Last year the company had revenues of £22m, recording 30pc growth in exports of its Cambridge Audio brand despite the global downturn.
“We realised we had to get a high quality product manufactured in China in order to get the right product and pricing for a demanding Western market. We were one of the first to come out here, in 1992,” says Mr Letheren.
Other hi-fi brands, which tried to maintain their factories in the UK, quickly came unstuck. Quad, founded in 1936, Wharfedale, from 1932, Mission and Castle, both founded in the 1970s, and Audiolab, a 1980s success story, are now all owned by IAG, a Taiwanese firm based in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen.
Now, however, Chinese manufacturers are moving swiftly up the value chain. “These companies are well and truly aware of what the technology needs to do and it will only be a matter of time before they are developing genuinely world-beating products,” says Mr Letheren.
“They have access to an enormous number of high-quality graduates. Even the very small manufacturer I met had taken on five post-graduate designers and he told me he was looking for something for them to do. I would struggle to do that, both with the cost and with actually finding and recruiting the available talent I need in London” he adds. “You will still find the experts with real in-depth marketing and product knowledge in the UK, but in terms of raw engineering skills, China is in a different league.”
If you doubt that Chinese manufacturers are now at the cutting edge, consider some of the products that Haier, once a cheap airconditioner and washing machine company, is about to release onto the market.
For your home, it has a 3D television that you do not need to plug into the wall. Instead, it runs off electricity that is transmitted to it wirelessly. Upstairs, you may wish to install one of Haier’s PowerPads, going on sale next month, in your bathroom. Sitting on the floor of the shower, it captures the heat of the water draining away and converts it back into electricity to power your boiler. Haier reckons it can capture 20pc to 30pc of the energy coming out of the tap.
Meanwhile, in the kitchen, your internet-connected refrigerator can monitor the freshness of your food and even tell you what to eat, depending on your body type. Haier’s heaters, washing machines, televisions and other appliances will also soon be connected to the web, allowing you to turn them on or off from the garden, the office, or wherever else you wish.
This 'smart home’ concept is partly why Mr Letheren is in China. He’s hoping to piggyback into the homes of the future using the systems set up by Chinese behemoth manufacturers.
“We will stream audio over the network to speakers that are smaller and more discreet. There are quite a few interesting angles. Multi-room systems can distribute audio and video around the house. There are some synergies with some very big appliance manufacturers,” he says.
The other reason is more worrying. Audio Partnership is now trying to find a Chinese company to help it design its products. Not only, it seems, has manufacturing migrated to the East, but design skills, once the pride of London, are also becoming cheaper to find in China.
“I am looking for design skills and maybe companies that are doing overlapping products so that we can use some of our technology with some of theirs,” he says. As hi-fi companies move away from traditional boxy sets towards wireless technology and iPod-integrated systems, it makes sense for companies to rely on Chinese firms to roll-out new designs.
Especially since the buyers of these new products may well turn out to be the Chinese themselves.
“Our market [here] is growing rapidly but it is very clear after my visit here that there is the potential to be doing a lot more,” says Mr Letheren.
“It is very clear that there is a large number of Chinese that have got significant disposable income and that they are eager buyers of luxury goods and that includes their entertainment system,” he adds.
Trying to work out Chinese tastes from the UK is a tricky proposition, so a local partner is required.
“I want to find someone flexible and small enough that we can make a contribution to the business,” says Mr Letheren. “We’ve got to accept that Western culture and fashion is different from China’s. But we are being told time and time again that they do still look up to Western brands.”
Quickie
Colonel
This is a case of too many doctoral students to handle. I would say this is better than having too few students unless the problem is caused by brain drain at the professor level.
Doctoral programs seriously flawed, study finds 08:08, August 26, 2010
The quality of China's doctoral programs can hardly keep pace with expanding enrollment, as research released this week shows.
The report slams flaws in the system, reporting that some professors have to supervise up to 47 doctoral candidates simultaneously.
Based on 1,392 questionnaires, the book, China Doctor Quality Survey, by Zhou Guangli, a professor at the Huazhong University of Science and Technology, shows that China's doctoral supervisors are heavily loaded, with 46 percent of the respondents supervising seven doctoral candidates at the same time.
Around 13 percent of the doctoral candidates in the survey contact their supervisor no more than once a month, and 3 percent of them said they never communicate with their supervisors, the book said.
China overtook the US to become the top doctor al-degree producer in 2008, with more than 50,000 doctoral degrees conferred that year in China, the book reported, citing an earlier report.
In 2009 there were a total of 246,300 doctoral candidates in China, and the country planned to enroll 62,000 more this year, the Ministry of Education said.
But, the number of qualified professors falls short of the growing enrollment of doctoral candidates, Zhou said, rainsing concerns over the problem that quantity is not being matched with quality.
"Reckless expansion will definitely lead to a decline of academic performance and quality given the limited education resources," Geng Shen, a researcher with the Beijing Academy of Educational Sciences, told the Global Times.
Meanwhile, students are complaining of being treated as "cheap labor" for their teachers, with 60 percent of them claiming they shouldered more than half of their teachers' work in Zhou's survey.
A 32-year-old male doctoral candidate surnamed Yu at Tongji University spends about nine hours a day helping his tutor with experiments and personal jobs, for which he receives about 200 to 300 yuan ($29 to $44) monthly.
Ruan Shouhua, a professor with the College of Education Administration at Beijing Normal University, said that some professors take up too many part-time jobs off campus, therefore they neglect their role in guiding their students to do their doctoral research.
The performance of Chinesedoctoral holders, however, has hardly satisfied their employers, with 68 percent of employers giving them "average" or "bad" marks, the survey said.
....more at the website.
Doctoral programs seriously flawed, study finds 08:08, August 26, 2010
The quality of China's doctoral programs can hardly keep pace with expanding enrollment, as research released this week shows.
The report slams flaws in the system, reporting that some professors have to supervise up to 47 doctoral candidates simultaneously.
Based on 1,392 questionnaires, the book, China Doctor Quality Survey, by Zhou Guangli, a professor at the Huazhong University of Science and Technology, shows that China's doctoral supervisors are heavily loaded, with 46 percent of the respondents supervising seven doctoral candidates at the same time.
Around 13 percent of the doctoral candidates in the survey contact their supervisor no more than once a month, and 3 percent of them said they never communicate with their supervisors, the book said.
China overtook the US to become the top doctor al-degree producer in 2008, with more than 50,000 doctoral degrees conferred that year in China, the book reported, citing an earlier report.
In 2009 there were a total of 246,300 doctoral candidates in China, and the country planned to enroll 62,000 more this year, the Ministry of Education said.
But, the number of qualified professors falls short of the growing enrollment of doctoral candidates, Zhou said, rainsing concerns over the problem that quantity is not being matched with quality.
"Reckless expansion will definitely lead to a decline of academic performance and quality given the limited education resources," Geng Shen, a researcher with the Beijing Academy of Educational Sciences, told the Global Times.
Meanwhile, students are complaining of being treated as "cheap labor" for their teachers, with 60 percent of them claiming they shouldered more than half of their teachers' work in Zhou's survey.
A 32-year-old male doctoral candidate surnamed Yu at Tongji University spends about nine hours a day helping his tutor with experiments and personal jobs, for which he receives about 200 to 300 yuan ($29 to $44) monthly.
Ruan Shouhua, a professor with the College of Education Administration at Beijing Normal University, said that some professors take up too many part-time jobs off campus, therefore they neglect their role in guiding their students to do their doctoral research.
The performance of Chinesedoctoral holders, however, has hardly satisfied their employers, with 68 percent of employers giving them "average" or "bad" marks, the survey said.
....more at the website.
Quickie
Colonel
English.news.cn 2010-08-26 19:46:06 FeedbackPrintRSS
BEIJING, Aug. 26 (Xinhua) -- A China-made manned submersible designed to dive to a depth of 7,000 meters has successfully reached 3,759 meters beneath the waves during a manned test, the Ministry of Science and Technology and the State Oceanic Administration (SOA) announced Thursday.
It makes China the fifth country, following the United States, France, Russia and Japan, to have the technologies for a manned dive to more than 3,500 meters below sea level, the two authorities announced at a press conference.
The submersible, dubbed "Jiaolong," completed 17 dives in the South China Sea from May 31 to July 18, with the deepest reaching 3,759 meters and with three crew on board, the SOA said in a report.
"We went through strict selection and training procedures before we managed to get on board the submersible," said Ye Cong, one of the crew on board.
"The submersible is very convenient to manoeuvre and we operated it quite well under the water," he said.
"I think we've only achieved initial success in the test. The future application of the vessel will be more remarkable than this test," he said.
It also set a record by operating underwater for nine hours and three minutes, the SOA report said.
The average ocean depth is 3,682 meters below sea level.
A submersible differs from a submarine as it typically depends on another vessel or facility for support.
"As the first manned vehicle designed to reach 7,000 meters below sea level in the world, the submersible can be used in 99.8 percent of the world's sea areas," said chief designer, Xu Qinan.
.... more at the website.
China's secure communications quantum leap
By Matthew Luce
A team of 15 Chinese researchers from Tsinghua University in Beijing and the Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences, a government-directed research center, in May published a research paper announcing a successful demonstration of "quantum teleportation" (liangzi yinxing chuan) over 16 kilometers of free space.
These researchers claimed to have the first successful experiment in the world. The technology on display has the potential to revolutionize secure communications for military and intelligence organizations and may become the watershed of a research race in communication and information technology.
Although much of the science behind this technology is still young, quantum technologies have wide-ranging applications for the fields of cryptography, remote sensing and secure satellite
communications. In the near future, the results from this experiment will be used to send encrypted messages that cannot be cracked or intercepted, and securely connect networks, even in remote areas, with no wired infrastructure, even incorporating satellites and submarines into the link [1].
Roots in quantum physics, applications in intelligence
Rather than transporting matter from place to place, quantum teleportation's most practical applications currently involve using photons for instantaneous, almost totally secure data communication. Using the term "teleportation" to describe this effect can be justified by what Albert Einstein called "spooky action at a distance": after two particles are linked together through quantum entanglement, any change in the state of one particle immediately alters the other, even from kilometers away. In effect, the state of the particle at the sender's end is destroyed and reappears as an exact replica at the receiver's end, with a negligible chance of undetected third-party interception [2].
While the teleportation of physical matter remains science fiction at this point, quantum teleportation could be immediately implemented as a means for secure communications and cryptography. Current encryption techniques are based upon mathematical functions involving very large prime numbers and secure key management and distribution, but this strategy has a number of drawbacks and is nearing the end of its shelf life.
In particular, as computing power continues to double every year and computer bits speed up through the use of quantum particles, the cryptographic keys used for encoding and decoding must now be changed more often to prevent encrypted data from being cracked. As a result, it has become very difficult to "future proof" the encryption of data, and were any major breakthrough in quantum computing to be achieved in the near future, current encryption techniques could become obsolete and encrypted data could suddenly become unprotected [3].
The security of using quantum teleportation to distribute cryptographic keys, on the other hand, is upheld by the laws of physics and has a seemingly infinite time horizon. These keys cannot currently be detected and cracked even with the help of the most powerful computers. Owing to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, the quantum states of photons cannot be observed without changing the state of the particle, which has the result of immediately informing the sender and receiver of any eavesdropping. Quantum communication can thus be used to send the most sensitive information, including keys to decode encrypted data sent over less secure means.
Significance of the China's achievement
As a result, the issue has found itself at the center of a rapidly developing geopolitical race to apply quantum technology to military and intelligence work. Since secure quantum key distribution (QKD) provides a much higher level of security between communication networks, employing quantum teleportation over a satellite network allows for completely secure communications, even in sensitive and remote areas, without fiber optic infrastructure, as long as all parties are able to maintain line of sight with a satellite. This could have wide applications in communications and intelligence for ground troops, aircraft, surface ships and submarines, and fits into China's current plans to grow its satellite network even further.
Using quantum teleportation to send this type of information has been technically possible for several years, but according to the Chinese research paper, it had been previously demonstrated experimentally only over an enclosed fiber optics network and then only over a distance of several hundred meters [4].
The Chinese experiment appears to shatter these records by claiming to be the first to use a high-powered blue laser to exchange quantum information over a free space channel, and to demonstrate the principle over a distance as great as 16km. This distance is significant because it displays approximately the same degree of light distortion as is seen in communication from the earth's surface to a satellite, and so would allow for quantum communication using satellites. If this experiment were indeed the first of its kind, it would appear that China has succeeded in leapfrogging the West, and gained a significant edge in next-generation communications and cryptography.
A quantum space race?
The Chinese claim to be the first may not be entirely accurate, although certain elements of their experiment were unique and innovative. In 2005, a group of universities and defense corporations under a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) grant and led by BBN Technologies, the company responsible for developing the precursor to the Internet, succeeded in transferring cryptographic keys over a free-space link of 23 km in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Well beyond the single link employed by the Chinese, the BBN program has developed an expanding, multi-node web of secure quantum communication that will be able to further expand and link seamlessly with existing Internet technology [5]. There are a few differences in the physics of their experiment that still make it notable and may not technically disqualify the Chinese from claiming their status as first, but nonetheless American researchers seem to have had a five-year head start in demonstrating the principles of the technology.
However, one notable difference between the Chinese and American experiments is that the Beijing experiment used a blue laser for their teleportation experiments while the BBN team had been employing infrared. Both have advantages and disadvantages in range and power, but the primary difference in their applications seems to be that blue and blue-green lasers penetrate further into water and so have wider applications for sub-surface communications. China is currently modernizing its submarine fleet as a way to project force further past its coastal waters to deter any US naval response to a potential invasion of Taiwan as well as doing significant research into laser communications in submarines [6].
Quantum laser links with satellites would allow sub-surface communication without most of the traditional downsides of radio communications and allow subs to operate with even greater autonomy and silence [7]. Judging from the interest in blue lasers for underwater communication and the interesting choice of a blue laser for the teleportation experiment, it would be safe to venture a guess that applications for quantum communication are already beginning to find their way into Chinese military research and development.
Because of its security level and applications for satellite and submarine communications, quantum communication technology figures centrally in the objectives of the Chinese military to upgrade their growing command and control capabilities. A functional satellite-based quantum communication system would give the Chinese military the ability to operate further afield without fear of message interception.
However, Chinese researchers must also be aware of the potential for the United States to employ the same technology and may be seeking ways to counter this eventuality. While it is still almost impossible to intercept quantum messages without being detected, it may be feasible to jam the laser signals that send them with "optical noise" or other lasers. Understanding the ways in which quantum cryptography functions may also eventually expose further weaknesses in the network that can be exploited by a savvy adversary.
China's continuing cutting-edge quantum cryptography, lasers and optics research thus seems as much a reaction to the same research in the United States and an attempt to counter it as it is to develop its own indigenous network.
Conclusions
All of these potential uses are motivations for Chinese labs to be the first to develop successful applications of quantum technology for immediate deployment and to claim milestones like being the first to successfully execute teleportation over several miles of free space.
Besides the military uses and academic prestige, this accomplishment could attract a significant amount of international funding for China's developing optics industry, and if quantum teleportation becomes the new paradigm for the future of secure communications, China would like to make a name for itself as the premier research and development hub. Claims of this recent "first" for China then have that much greater significance for security and the continued health of US technological superiority.
Notes
1. Jin Xian-Min, et al. "Experimental free-space quantum teleportation." Nature Photonics 4, 376 - 381 (2010). Published online: May 16, 2010 doi:10.1038/nphoton.2010.87. See also the Chinese Academy of Sciences review.
2. Lei Zhang, Jacob Barhen, and Hua-Kuang Liu. "Experimental and Theoretical Aspects of Quantum Teleportation." Center foe Engineering Science Advanced Research, Computer Science and Mathematics Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (2000).
3. David Pearson, "Building a QKD Network out of Theories and Devices," BBN Technologies (December 2005).
4. The Chinese paper cites R Ursin, et al. "Quantum teleportation across the Danube" and I Marcikic, et al "Long-distance teleportation of qubits at telecommunication wavelengths," both descriptions of quantum cryptography over hundreds of meters of optical fiber.
5. Chip Elliott, et al. "Current status of the DARPA Quantum Network." In Quantum Information and Computation III, edited by Eric J. Donkor, Andrew R. Pirich, Howard E. Brandt, Proceedings of SPIE Vol. 5815 (SPIE, Bellingham, WA, 2005).
6. See Yingzhuang Liu and Xiaohu Ge, "Underwater laser sensor network: a new approach for broadband communication in the underwater." Department of Electronics & Information Engineering, Huazhong University for Science and Technology (May 2006).
7. These include detectability, the need to surface to communicate, limitations in range, and the reliance on cryptographic keys that may be cracked.
Matthew Luce is a researcher and Chinese linguist at Defense Group Inc’s Center for Intelligence Research and Analysis, where he does primary source research and analysis of China’s science and technology policies and development programs. Mr. Luce's research and writing focuses on cyber security, C4ISR-related technologies, and China's ethnic relations. He has worked and traveled extensively in China and speaks and reads fluent Chinese.
This article first appeared in The Jamestown Foundation. Used with permission.)
(Copyright 2010 The Jamestown Foundation.)
Rising China
Junior Member
:china::china::china:
Rendezvous of Chinese satellites has military use?
China launched the Shi Jian 12 satellite aboard a Long March 2D from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on June 15.
Earlier this month, two Chinese satellites met up in orbit. It’s either a sign of China’s increasingly-sophisticated space program — or a sign of its increasingly-sophisticated space warfare program.
A well-regarded Russian space watcher was the first to note that the two satellites, newly-launched SJ-12 and two-year-old SJ-06F, had performed maneuvers indicating a cutting edge procedure called non-cooperative robotic rendezvous. A loose network of amateur space spectators and astronomers soon congregated online, and confirmed that the sats had, indeed, converged.
This kind of rendezvous can have extremely useful, and benign, applications: removing space debris, refueling satellites or repairing craft in orbit. But the military apps are massive, and include up-close inspection of foreign satellites, espionage — and the infliction of some serious damage to adversarial space infrastructure. In other words, orbital warfare that, given just how reliant we are on satellite technology, would have widespread consequences on the ground.
“These kinds of rendezvous have been done plenty of times with ground control, but robotically controlled satellites, rendezvousing at higher altitudes, is really quite new,” says Brian Weeden, who offers an in-depth rundown of the incident at The Space Review. “The perception of how this technology is being developed, and what it is being used for, is extremely important.”
The United States is the only other country known to have performed a similar feat. In 2005, NASA researchers launched DART (Demonstration of Autonomous Rendezvous Technology) in an effort to rendezvous with a Navy satellite. Navigational errors led to the two satellites bumping, but the initiative did offer proof-of-concept that American scientists were making major headway towards satellites that can autonomously meet up in space. Since then, the Darpa-funded Orbital Express program has demonstrated the capacity for satellites to rendezvous for refueling and module swapping.
So, in a sense, it was really only a matter of time before China followed suit. In recent years, they’ve fast-tracked a handful of space exploration and development projects, culminating in a satellite-killing weapons program and 90-pound mini-sat that some speculated was designed with nefarious intent.
“The Chinese would be absolutely incompetent to not be trying to reduce U.S advantage in space,” says James Oberg, a former NASA space engineer specializing in orbital rendezvous.
China’s government has yet to acknowledge the incident, and their apparent choice of location for the actual rendezvous adds to the troubling puzzle. According to Oberg, the satellite meet-up occurred in an orbit almost exclusively devoted to earth observation — spy and weather satellites, for example — where “a potential adversary would be most interested in rendezvousing.”
“On the other hand, it’s also where a satellite might need refueling,” he adds. “It’s like you could be changing a screwdriver for a hammer, or you could be turning a peaceful ‘bot into a killer one.”
But China’s been eager to boast about their prior space exploration projects, and have already publicized plans for a major satellite rendezvous trial next year, so silence in this instance seems telling.
“There’s still a vague possibility that this was a matter of computational bias and coincidence,” Oberg says. “But the silence here is suggestive of a military program.”
For now, web-based space watchers will keep working. They’re hoping to figure out whether or not the Chinese satellites touched, which would indicate either an error like that of the DART attempt or some kind of military trial run.
“For all we know, these could just be mind games. They don’t have to attack U.S space capacities — they just have to make us think they could,” Oberg says. “We’re not playing chess in space, we’re playing Go. This makes chess look like a kindergartner’s pastime.” (From Wired)
Rendezvous of Chinese satellites has military use?
China launched the Shi Jian 12 satellite aboard a Long March 2D from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on June 15.
Earlier this month, two Chinese satellites met up in orbit. It’s either a sign of China’s increasingly-sophisticated space program — or a sign of its increasingly-sophisticated space warfare program.
A well-regarded Russian space watcher was the first to note that the two satellites, newly-launched SJ-12 and two-year-old SJ-06F, had performed maneuvers indicating a cutting edge procedure called non-cooperative robotic rendezvous. A loose network of amateur space spectators and astronomers soon congregated online, and confirmed that the sats had, indeed, converged.
This kind of rendezvous can have extremely useful, and benign, applications: removing space debris, refueling satellites or repairing craft in orbit. But the military apps are massive, and include up-close inspection of foreign satellites, espionage — and the infliction of some serious damage to adversarial space infrastructure. In other words, orbital warfare that, given just how reliant we are on satellite technology, would have widespread consequences on the ground.
“These kinds of rendezvous have been done plenty of times with ground control, but robotically controlled satellites, rendezvousing at higher altitudes, is really quite new,” says Brian Weeden, who offers an in-depth rundown of the incident at The Space Review. “The perception of how this technology is being developed, and what it is being used for, is extremely important.”
The United States is the only other country known to have performed a similar feat. In 2005, NASA researchers launched DART (Demonstration of Autonomous Rendezvous Technology) in an effort to rendezvous with a Navy satellite. Navigational errors led to the two satellites bumping, but the initiative did offer proof-of-concept that American scientists were making major headway towards satellites that can autonomously meet up in space. Since then, the Darpa-funded Orbital Express program has demonstrated the capacity for satellites to rendezvous for refueling and module swapping.
So, in a sense, it was really only a matter of time before China followed suit. In recent years, they’ve fast-tracked a handful of space exploration and development projects, culminating in a satellite-killing weapons program and 90-pound mini-sat that some speculated was designed with nefarious intent.
“The Chinese would be absolutely incompetent to not be trying to reduce U.S advantage in space,” says James Oberg, a former NASA space engineer specializing in orbital rendezvous.
China’s government has yet to acknowledge the incident, and their apparent choice of location for the actual rendezvous adds to the troubling puzzle. According to Oberg, the satellite meet-up occurred in an orbit almost exclusively devoted to earth observation — spy and weather satellites, for example — where “a potential adversary would be most interested in rendezvousing.”
“On the other hand, it’s also where a satellite might need refueling,” he adds. “It’s like you could be changing a screwdriver for a hammer, or you could be turning a peaceful ‘bot into a killer one.”
But China’s been eager to boast about their prior space exploration projects, and have already publicized plans for a major satellite rendezvous trial next year, so silence in this instance seems telling.
“There’s still a vague possibility that this was a matter of computational bias and coincidence,” Oberg says. “But the silence here is suggestive of a military program.”
For now, web-based space watchers will keep working. They’re hoping to figure out whether or not the Chinese satellites touched, which would indicate either an error like that of the DART attempt or some kind of military trial run.
“For all we know, these could just be mind games. They don’t have to attack U.S space capacities — they just have to make us think they could,” Oberg says. “We’re not playing chess in space, we’re playing Go. This makes chess look like a kindergartner’s pastime.” (From Wired)
Martian
Senior Member
Chinese Offshore Development Blows Past U.S.
There is more good news from the New York Times. The most important fact from the article is that China co-designs, builds, and retains the intellectual property right to its wind turbines and related technologies. "All of China's top five turbine manufacturers have worked with foreign engineers yet retained the intellectual property rights on the technologies."
image via CleanTechnica
"Chinese Offshore Development Blows Past U.S.
By MANUELA ZONINSEIN of ClimateWire
Published: September 7, 2010
As proposed American offshore wind-farm projects creep forward -- slowed by state legislative debates, due diligence and environmental impact assessments -- China has leapt past the United States, installing its first offshore wind farm.
Several other farms also are already under construction, and even the Chinese government's ambitious targets seem low compared to industry dreaming.
"What the U.S. doesn't realize," said Peggy Liu, founder and chairwoman of the Joint U.S.-China Collaboration on Clean Energy, is that China "is going from manufacturing hub to the clean-tech laboratory of the world."
The first major offshore wind farm outside of Europe is located in the East China Sea, near Shanghai. The 102-megawatt Donghai Bridge Wind Farm began transmitting power to the national grid in July and signals a new direction for Chinese renewable energy projects and the initiation of a national policy focusing not just on wind power, but increasingly on the offshore variety.
Moreover, "it serves as a showcase of what the Chinese can do offshore ... and it's quite significant," said Rachel Enslow, a wind consultant and co-author of the report "China, Norway and Offshore Wind Development," published in March by Azure International for the World Wildlife Fund Norway.
Planned to strategically coincide with the World Expo in Shanghai, which is being fed electricity from the offshore farm, China is ready to show the world what its own homegrown wind technology can do.
All of Donghai Bridge's 34 turbines, 3 MW capacity each, were built by Sinovel Wind Group, China's largest wind turbine manufacturer, though designed in cooperation with American Superconductor. The Beijing-based company began building the farm at the mouth of the Yangtze River Delta in September 2008. CCCC Third Harbor Engineering Co. Ltd., also based in Beijing, installed the turbines, completing construction in February 2010. Shanghai's Zhongtian Technologies Submarine Optic Fiber Cable Co. Ltd. manufactured the 78 km of submarine cable.
Powering 200,000 households while reducing CO2
In China, one key challenge will be developing foundations for the soft seabed commonly found off the coast of the East China Sea, especially since "most offshore wind farms that will be developed in China will be intertidal," said Gerald Page, managing director of Equinox Energy Partners, a venture capital firm in Beijing.
The $337 million project, located 8 to 13 km (about 5 to 8 miles) from the coast, was erected on soft seabed conditions using a multi-pile foundation structure. About eight to 10 legs are placed on concrete piles, on top of which are stacked a concrete tack and then the turbines. Shanghai Investigation, Design and Research Institute conceived the foundation.
During low tide, the turbine foundations are exposed; during high tide, they become submerged in about 5 meters (16 feet) of water. Unlike in Europe, which is much more focused on developing deepwater (greater than 50 meters, or 164 feet, deep) turbine technology, China is exploring unique foundation technology and demonstrating innovative pursuits.
The farm is expected to eventually generate an annual 267 million kilowatt-hours of electricity -- enough to power 200,000 Shanghai households. China's government claims that annually, the wind farm will cut use of 100,000 tons of coal, reducing carbon emissions by 246,058 tons.
Currently, the wind farm's capacity is equivalent to only 1 percent of the city's total power production of about 18,200 MW, which is generated mostly from traditional fuel-based sources, according to China Daily, the state-run English-language daily newspaper in Beijing.
Construction of the Donghai project's second phase, on the west side of the bridge, has been approved by authorities. It, too, is projected to produce about 100 MW. An additional four farms surrounding Shanghai are currently under negotiation, and the city hopes to complete 13 wind farms by 2020, with the majority of the expected 1,000 MW capacity supplied by offshore wind farms.
An industry's itch to expand
The "Development Plan on Emerging Energies" released July 20 outlines wind production goals through 2020 by the Chinese government.
According to the plan, offshore wind power is expected to reach 30 gigawatts, and coastal provinces were required to start drafting offshore wind-grid implementation plans. This includes Liaoning, Shandong, Jiangsu, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangdong provinces. In the next three to four years, according to the Azure-WWF report, in total, 514 MW should be installed along this coastline. As of March this year, pipelines accommodating 17 MW were already installed between Donghai and a pilot wind project in Bohai Bay near Tianjin.
The expected long-term cumulative pipeline, at 13.7 GW, is nearly halfway to the estimated 2020 goal, but this doesn't necessarily mean that the Mandarins are fully behind renewable technologies and warmly welcoming a greener future.
"The top-level people are cautiously optimistic," explained Andrew Grieve, a senior researcher at J Capital Research, an equities research company based in Beijing. "They are far more optimistic on the local and provincial level."
Behind closed doors, industry insiders hear buzz and speculation that coastal provinces' plans far exceed the existing Chinese central government's plans.
Grieve stressed that the real force for wind comes from manufacturers that are itching to expand the market. "Comparatively speaking," he said, "the central government is the most conservative of the lot."
All this is without official numbers, as the 12th Five-Year Plan (for the 2011-2015 time period) has still not been formally unveiled. It remains in final draft form, and though the original release date was slated for March, approval keeps moving backward. Analysts expect the implementation date should, at the latest, arrive on Jan. 1, 2011.
The central government's aim was to hit 10 GW by 2010, a goal that was quickly surpassed.
"Industry is either going to take their number and beat it, or government is going to have to step in and calm down growth," Grieve said. Rumors support the latter, but given historical trends, the former would seem more likely.
The Azure-WWF report describes the offshore wind energy generation potential in China as huge -- calculated as 11,000 terawatt-hours, similar to that of the North Sea in western Europe.
"China has the largest wind resources in the world, and three-quarters of them are offshore," Barbara Finamore, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's Beijing office, told Scientific American.
The existing industry is nowhere near that large. As Grieve explained, "apart from the 1 gigawatt of bids this year, there are no central government national targets for offshore wind, although possible national targets of 5 gigawatts by 2015 and 30 gigawatts by 2020 have been suggested." The provincial government-proposed provincial offshore development plans amount to 10.2 GW by 2015 and 22.7 GW by 2020.
The growth in China's wind manufacturing market remains focused on the domestic market -- for now. Dheeraj Choudhary, who runs Parker Hannifin Corp.'s Global Renewable Energy business unit, said "60 to 70 percent of wind turbine market growth has come from domestic manufacturers, and not the international guys."
Joanna Lewis, an assistant professor of science, technology and international affairs at Georgetown University who works as a China program adviser to the Energy Foundation, agreed: "No one has nearly as much capacity [as China] installed in the world." As a result, there is still "very strong demand for wind turbines in China, and they're not at stage where supply exceeds demand."
Eyeing markets abroad
Talk to wind turbine and technology experts and manufacturers, and they see a day not too far off when Chinese-produced (and in some cases, Chinese-invented) turbines will service foreign markets.
Anthony Fullelove, project manager for North Brown Hill Wind Farm, based in Sydney, Australia, expects that his country, as well as Europe and the United States, will see a sharp increase in turbines sourced from China -- as the technology rises to meet global standards and prices drop -- to make wind farms viable especially in a generation sector without a carbon price.
"Turbine manufacturers in China are starting to look for markets abroad upon seeing Chinese market getting tighter and tighter, with more companies selling in China," Lewis added.
For the time being, Chinese manufacturers still work hand in hand with foreign engineers and designers. But that is starting to shift.
"Reliance is much lower," noted Choudhary. Instead, Chinese manufacturers look to foreign companies to provide subsystems and components. All of China's top five turbine manufacturers have worked with foreign engineers yet retained the intellectual property rights on the technologies.
Meanwhile, as China moves forward with installing water-based wind farms as well as developing its domestic technological know-how, not a single offshore wind turbine is in use in the United States.
Though the 130-turbine Cape Wind project, in Nantucket Sound off the coast of Massachusetts, has received federal approval, several potential regulatory and judicial hurdles lurk. Similarly, the Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission recently approved a power purchase agreement proposed for the Block Island farm off of Rhode Island, which would start with an initial eight turbines as a model, yet Attorney General Patrick Lynch (D) has vowed to appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court.
When discussing the creation of an Atlantic Offshore Wind Energy Consortium in February, U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said it currently takes seven to nine years for offshore wind project to receive approval. At this point, Cape Wind is moving into its 10th year of negotiations.
In comparison, China's Renewable Energy Law was implemented in January 2006. By November 2007, the Bohai model turbine was installed. So important was the Donghai farm to the Chinese Communist Party, it footed the bill to ensure the project would be completed in time for Expo 2010 in Shanghai, during which time China has the eyes of the whole world watching."
There is more good news from the New York Times. The most important fact from the article is that China co-designs, builds, and retains the intellectual property right to its wind turbines and related technologies. "All of China's top five turbine manufacturers have worked with foreign engineers yet retained the intellectual property rights on the technologies."
image via CleanTechnica
"Chinese Offshore Development Blows Past U.S.
By MANUELA ZONINSEIN of ClimateWire
Published: September 7, 2010
As proposed American offshore wind-farm projects creep forward -- slowed by state legislative debates, due diligence and environmental impact assessments -- China has leapt past the United States, installing its first offshore wind farm.
Several other farms also are already under construction, and even the Chinese government's ambitious targets seem low compared to industry dreaming.
"What the U.S. doesn't realize," said Peggy Liu, founder and chairwoman of the Joint U.S.-China Collaboration on Clean Energy, is that China "is going from manufacturing hub to the clean-tech laboratory of the world."
The first major offshore wind farm outside of Europe is located in the East China Sea, near Shanghai. The 102-megawatt Donghai Bridge Wind Farm began transmitting power to the national grid in July and signals a new direction for Chinese renewable energy projects and the initiation of a national policy focusing not just on wind power, but increasingly on the offshore variety.
Moreover, "it serves as a showcase of what the Chinese can do offshore ... and it's quite significant," said Rachel Enslow, a wind consultant and co-author of the report "China, Norway and Offshore Wind Development," published in March by Azure International for the World Wildlife Fund Norway.
Planned to strategically coincide with the World Expo in Shanghai, which is being fed electricity from the offshore farm, China is ready to show the world what its own homegrown wind technology can do.
All of Donghai Bridge's 34 turbines, 3 MW capacity each, were built by Sinovel Wind Group, China's largest wind turbine manufacturer, though designed in cooperation with American Superconductor. The Beijing-based company began building the farm at the mouth of the Yangtze River Delta in September 2008. CCCC Third Harbor Engineering Co. Ltd., also based in Beijing, installed the turbines, completing construction in February 2010. Shanghai's Zhongtian Technologies Submarine Optic Fiber Cable Co. Ltd. manufactured the 78 km of submarine cable.
Powering 200,000 households while reducing CO2
In China, one key challenge will be developing foundations for the soft seabed commonly found off the coast of the East China Sea, especially since "most offshore wind farms that will be developed in China will be intertidal," said Gerald Page, managing director of Equinox Energy Partners, a venture capital firm in Beijing.
The $337 million project, located 8 to 13 km (about 5 to 8 miles) from the coast, was erected on soft seabed conditions using a multi-pile foundation structure. About eight to 10 legs are placed on concrete piles, on top of which are stacked a concrete tack and then the turbines. Shanghai Investigation, Design and Research Institute conceived the foundation.
During low tide, the turbine foundations are exposed; during high tide, they become submerged in about 5 meters (16 feet) of water. Unlike in Europe, which is much more focused on developing deepwater (greater than 50 meters, or 164 feet, deep) turbine technology, China is exploring unique foundation technology and demonstrating innovative pursuits.
The farm is expected to eventually generate an annual 267 million kilowatt-hours of electricity -- enough to power 200,000 Shanghai households. China's government claims that annually, the wind farm will cut use of 100,000 tons of coal, reducing carbon emissions by 246,058 tons.
Currently, the wind farm's capacity is equivalent to only 1 percent of the city's total power production of about 18,200 MW, which is generated mostly from traditional fuel-based sources, according to China Daily, the state-run English-language daily newspaper in Beijing.
Construction of the Donghai project's second phase, on the west side of the bridge, has been approved by authorities. It, too, is projected to produce about 100 MW. An additional four farms surrounding Shanghai are currently under negotiation, and the city hopes to complete 13 wind farms by 2020, with the majority of the expected 1,000 MW capacity supplied by offshore wind farms.
An industry's itch to expand
The "Development Plan on Emerging Energies" released July 20 outlines wind production goals through 2020 by the Chinese government.
According to the plan, offshore wind power is expected to reach 30 gigawatts, and coastal provinces were required to start drafting offshore wind-grid implementation plans. This includes Liaoning, Shandong, Jiangsu, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangdong provinces. In the next three to four years, according to the Azure-WWF report, in total, 514 MW should be installed along this coastline. As of March this year, pipelines accommodating 17 MW were already installed between Donghai and a pilot wind project in Bohai Bay near Tianjin.
The expected long-term cumulative pipeline, at 13.7 GW, is nearly halfway to the estimated 2020 goal, but this doesn't necessarily mean that the Mandarins are fully behind renewable technologies and warmly welcoming a greener future.
"The top-level people are cautiously optimistic," explained Andrew Grieve, a senior researcher at J Capital Research, an equities research company based in Beijing. "They are far more optimistic on the local and provincial level."
Behind closed doors, industry insiders hear buzz and speculation that coastal provinces' plans far exceed the existing Chinese central government's plans.
Grieve stressed that the real force for wind comes from manufacturers that are itching to expand the market. "Comparatively speaking," he said, "the central government is the most conservative of the lot."
All this is without official numbers, as the 12th Five-Year Plan (for the 2011-2015 time period) has still not been formally unveiled. It remains in final draft form, and though the original release date was slated for March, approval keeps moving backward. Analysts expect the implementation date should, at the latest, arrive on Jan. 1, 2011.
The central government's aim was to hit 10 GW by 2010, a goal that was quickly surpassed.
"Industry is either going to take their number and beat it, or government is going to have to step in and calm down growth," Grieve said. Rumors support the latter, but given historical trends, the former would seem more likely.
The Azure-WWF report describes the offshore wind energy generation potential in China as huge -- calculated as 11,000 terawatt-hours, similar to that of the North Sea in western Europe.
"China has the largest wind resources in the world, and three-quarters of them are offshore," Barbara Finamore, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's Beijing office, told Scientific American.
The existing industry is nowhere near that large. As Grieve explained, "apart from the 1 gigawatt of bids this year, there are no central government national targets for offshore wind, although possible national targets of 5 gigawatts by 2015 and 30 gigawatts by 2020 have been suggested." The provincial government-proposed provincial offshore development plans amount to 10.2 GW by 2015 and 22.7 GW by 2020.
The growth in China's wind manufacturing market remains focused on the domestic market -- for now. Dheeraj Choudhary, who runs Parker Hannifin Corp.'s Global Renewable Energy business unit, said "60 to 70 percent of wind turbine market growth has come from domestic manufacturers, and not the international guys."
Joanna Lewis, an assistant professor of science, technology and international affairs at Georgetown University who works as a China program adviser to the Energy Foundation, agreed: "No one has nearly as much capacity [as China] installed in the world." As a result, there is still "very strong demand for wind turbines in China, and they're not at stage where supply exceeds demand."
Eyeing markets abroad
Talk to wind turbine and technology experts and manufacturers, and they see a day not too far off when Chinese-produced (and in some cases, Chinese-invented) turbines will service foreign markets.
Anthony Fullelove, project manager for North Brown Hill Wind Farm, based in Sydney, Australia, expects that his country, as well as Europe and the United States, will see a sharp increase in turbines sourced from China -- as the technology rises to meet global standards and prices drop -- to make wind farms viable especially in a generation sector without a carbon price.
"Turbine manufacturers in China are starting to look for markets abroad upon seeing Chinese market getting tighter and tighter, with more companies selling in China," Lewis added.
For the time being, Chinese manufacturers still work hand in hand with foreign engineers and designers. But that is starting to shift.
"Reliance is much lower," noted Choudhary. Instead, Chinese manufacturers look to foreign companies to provide subsystems and components. All of China's top five turbine manufacturers have worked with foreign engineers yet retained the intellectual property rights on the technologies.
Meanwhile, as China moves forward with installing water-based wind farms as well as developing its domestic technological know-how, not a single offshore wind turbine is in use in the United States.
Though the 130-turbine Cape Wind project, in Nantucket Sound off the coast of Massachusetts, has received federal approval, several potential regulatory and judicial hurdles lurk. Similarly, the Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission recently approved a power purchase agreement proposed for the Block Island farm off of Rhode Island, which would start with an initial eight turbines as a model, yet Attorney General Patrick Lynch (D) has vowed to appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court.
When discussing the creation of an Atlantic Offshore Wind Energy Consortium in February, U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said it currently takes seven to nine years for offshore wind project to receive approval. At this point, Cape Wind is moving into its 10th year of negotiations.
In comparison, China's Renewable Energy Law was implemented in January 2006. By November 2007, the Bohai model turbine was installed. So important was the Donghai farm to the Chinese Communist Party, it footed the bill to ensure the project would be completed in time for Expo 2010 in Shanghai, during which time China has the eyes of the whole world watching."
Martian
Senior Member
Smart robot hand developed in NE China
Smart robot hand devised in NE China
UPDATED: 14:46, June 27, 2006
A robot hand plays the piano by computerized instruction in Harbin, northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, on June 26, 2006. Co-developed by Harbin Institute of Technology and German Aerospace, the four-fingered robot hand consists of thirteen movable parts and can accomplish multiple sense-and-action functions.
The interior structure of the robot hand.
The robot hand holds a water bottle.
The robot hand gives an ok sign.
Smart robot hand devised in NE China
UPDATED: 14:46, June 27, 2006
A robot hand plays the piano by computerized instruction in Harbin, northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, on June 26, 2006. Co-developed by Harbin Institute of Technology and German Aerospace, the four-fingered robot hand consists of thirteen movable parts and can accomplish multiple sense-and-action functions.
The interior structure of the robot hand.
The robot hand holds a water bottle.
The robot hand gives an ok sign.