PLAN ASW Capability

In the years to come, Chinese and U.S. drones will likely be in a high stakes cat and mouse game in the Pacific.

There is extensive UUV program all across the country. Some of them might reach maturity and ready to be deployed


July 24, 2017

Strategists contemplating Asia-Pacific strategy quickly come to the conclusion that the undersea campaign is decisive. Fixed targets are vulnerable in the age of precision strike, meaning that air bases do not have a chance against a barrage of missiles. And with advances in ISR (Intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) sensors and ever expanding missile ranges and power projection platforms, surface warships not fare much better. Thus, it is no laughing matter to consider that China has pulled off some breakthroughs in submarine quieting or that the PLA Navy submarine force has to enter both the Arctic and also the Atlantic as part of a much enhanced pattern of operational deployments.

But undersea warfare is not static and some have that higher computer processing speeds combined with myriad new underwater sensors could render even remote parts of the ocean more and more transparent, undermining submarine stealth and survivability. Some of China’s recent achievements in these developments have been in this space. Another question hovering over the undersea warfare planner is the question of how important undersea robots, both unmanned undersea vehicles (UUVs) and remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) could be. Will they come to assume the same vital role that unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have assumed? A Dragon Eye column has dipped a toe into this discussion before by the role that the new U.S. Navy anti-submarine unmanned surface ship (USV) Sea Hunter (with an extraordinary range of 10,000 miles) could play in the evolving U.S.-China maritime rivalry. This column will dip another toe into this pond and explore several Chinese platforms in development of this nascent unmanned unfolding on and under the waves.

A first Chinese UUV of significance is the so-called Haiyi [海翼] or “sea wing,” which is a standard looking glider. It should be said that this is hardly Beijing’s only . Gliders in the UUV context refer to vehicles originally developed in the West that are literally self-propelled in that they lack a large battery or fuel for propulsion. Instead they rely on small changes in buoyancy to maintain propulsion through a constant process of ascending and descending through the water column. According to a description of Haiyi recently in the Chinese military magazine Ordnance Industry Science and Technology (兵工科技), “since there is no power propulsion, the acoustic signature is extremely low. That characteristic suggests that [this platform] can have great significance for the military domain [由于无动力推进噪音极底这个重要的特点使得其在军事上也有很大的应用价值]. Produced by a Shenyang robotics laboratory, Haiyi is two meters in length and weighs 65kg, dimensions quite in line with Western analogues. The project was initiated in 2003 and a prototype was ready in 2005. An extended test in 2012 explored the area proximate to the Dongsha [东沙] islands in the northeastern South China Sea. A map included with the article actually shows the vehicle’s precise track, the sensitive waters west of the critical Luzon Strait. The article further notes that, due to Western sanctions on glider technology, the Haiyi was “completely developed indigenously.” It is apparently of some significance that a boasts that this glider has set world diving records and reached a depth of 6,229m. This is significant because sound propagation is more efficient in deeper waters, so deep-diving gliders could possibly be related to submarine detection missions.

On the subject of Chinese glider development, one might also highlight the rather more mysterious “dolphin-shaped underwater glider,” [仿海豚水下滑翔机] a picture and short description of which appeared in the of the Chinese defense magazine Contemporary Military Affairs[现代军事]. Fitted with both fin and tail, it is not clear whether the design from the Beijing company Weisheng [维盛] represents an application of biotic (animal-like) technologies, a subject of high interest among Chinese defense researchers, or is simply intended to befuddle would-be drone snatchers. More on that point at the conclusion of this essay, but the short description does suggest that this “dolphin” glider has the advantage of low acoustic signature and, among other missions, could be deployed for the mission of providing “sonar countermeasures.” [水声对抗].

Two other undersea robots are profiled in detail in the first Ordnance Industry piece discussed above. They are designated Qianlong [潜龙] 1 and 2. Unlike the gliders, these are both autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) but their shapes and presumably their intended purposes are starkly different. Qianlong-1, which had its first ocean test in May 2013, resembles a torpedo and is reported to be 4.6m in length with a weight of 1,500kg. It can maintain two knots over twenty-four hours. From the enclosed photo, this platform would appear to have side scan sonar capability. No information is provided regarding its likely missions, but it was reportedly China’s first 6,000m undersea robot, and it is said to be capable of avoiding obstacles in “relatively complex ocean bottom environments.” Its cousin, Qianlong-2 looks completely different, distinctly resembling a massive tuna rather than a torpedo. Completed in March 2016, Qianlong-2 is reported to have been involved in no less than forty separate ocean test missions, including one apparently as far away as the southwest Indian Ocean. The 1.5 ton fish-looking AUV seems to have been primarily developed for ocean bottom and resource exploration and extraction missions.

However, the next vehicle profiled here is plainly designed for military purposes. Revealed in yet

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of Ordnance Industry is an “Indigenous New Type Anti-submarine, Anti-Frog Man Unmanned Boat” [国产新型反潜反蛙人无人船]. These particular USV boats come in two variants, 4m and also a larger 8m version. The boats are said to have a top speed of forty-five knots and to be capable of ranges up to 1,500km in sea conditions up to sea state 5 or even 6. The project was initiated in 2014 and the prototypes are built of polycarbonate plastic, fiberglass and kevlar. The boat is a semi-submersible and may operate mostly submerged with only a mast protruding that has various sensors. For detection of submarines, the boat has side-scan sonars that are capable of seeing targets “at relatively long distances” [距离比较远]. A spherical array is said to be optimized against frogmen. The platform does not have any weaponry and is intended only as an ISR platform intended to relay a warning to the command headquarters. The effort may be part of a larger “net-centric” doctrine that relies, to a large extent, on using longer range

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to put torpedoes onto relatively distant undersea targets. On the other hand, the designer also does point to a whole variety of non-military missions, including scientific research and aiding the fishing industry as well. According to this article, the Shenzhen designer already has five prototypes built and is looking to secure a formal contract for sale, potentially first to the Chinese Coast Guard [我国海警].

Many USV research and development programs obviously exist in China today. For example, the same article that profiled the dolphin glider above also discusses two USVs, one produced in Dalian called S18B and another from Shanghai. The latter has developed a series called Jinghai [精海] and this has been used as far away as in the Antarctic, as well as in the East and South China Seas. Indeed, Jinghai-1 is reported to be in service with the PLA Navy South Sea Fleet and is apparently tasked with mapping. There is yet another USV that closely resembles the rather of a Northrop Grumman ACTUV for a semi-submersible USV. This Chinese model, designated as BQ-10 and produced in Shenyang, is said to be well adapted to military applications, because of its stealth. With its length of 6.1m and its mast height of 5m, the platform is said to be capable of tracking both surface and underwater targets.

(cont)
The multiple programs discussed above offer some perspective into the highly dynamic development program that China has put in place to apply robotics toward building its “great wall at sea,” both on and particularly underwater. In the years ahead, it seems likely that Chinese and U.S. drones will be facing off and interacting in a high stakes cat and mouse game. A glimpse of this “game” was revealed, of course, back in December 2016 when China snatched a U.S. underwater glider in the South China Sea. One Chinese-language review of that crisis that in Global Times [环球时报] notes that “Pentagon sources said the UUVs would be used to create databases . . . which would be used to track China’s growing submarine force.” There was additional speculation in the Chinese article whether the snatch had been a bit of retribution for President Donald Trump’s early phone call with the leader of Taiwan. A Chinese military source quoted in this report published after the drone was returned by China did not comment on that sensitive issue, but did observe that “bilateral crisis management mechanisms were relatively effective.” We can only hope that future iterations of the “Drone Wars” between the superpowers will likewise feature such restraint—with many humans in the loop, lest a robot inadvertently sets in motion a catastrophic war.

Lyle J. Goldstein is an associate professor in the China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI) at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. The opinions expressed in this analysis are his own and do not represent the official assessments of the U.S. Navy or any other agency of the U.S. government.

Now this is Haiyi that prof Lyle Goldstein alluded in the previous post. The day US sub can roam worry free is coming to a close soon

CHINA'S MILITARY COULD LEAVE U.S. NAVY DEAD IN THE WATER WITH NEW SEA DRONES
BY ON 7/26/17 AT 3:04 PM

China is looking to guard its territorial claims in the Asia-Pacific from what it considers U.S. aggression, and Beijing's latest maritime tool could catch the Pentagon's submarines faster than ever.

China claims it released 12 unmanned drones, known as gliders, into the depths of the South China Sea to collect environmental data, the state-run reported Sunday. The outlet described the high-tech glider, known as Haiyi (meaning "sea wings" in Mandarin Chinese"), as an underwater robot that was more efficient, more durable and used less energy than its predecessors, all while instantly relaying data underwater, a feat not even the U.S. has mastered. The scientific devices were not weaponized but could be used to instantly detect U.S. submarines traveling in waters China claims as its own.

"The data is being transmitted back to a land-based laboratory in real time," the expedition's chief scientist, Yu Jiancheng, told the Xinhua News Agency, according to an article published Wednesday by the. The piece quoted Yin Jingwei, dean of the college of underwater acoustic engineering at Harbin Engineering University, as saying the project's success, if true, "is definitely a breakthrough."

China's Haiyi (or "Sea Wings") unmanned underwater glider set a world record for deepest depth before being retrieved from the ocean by the crew of the Tansuo-1 ship on March 5, in this still from a clip shared by the state-run China Central Television network. Experts say such technology could be used to detect U.S. submarines challenging China's territorial claims at sea.CCTV/YOUTUBE

The glider was developed by the state-run , which previously tested it in March, during which it reportedly broke a previous deep-diving record set by the U.S. The academy said Haiyi was able to swim to a depth of over 20,764 feet, or nearly 4 miles down, beating the U.S.-held world record of over 16,964 feet, or about 3.7 miles. Using a unique battery and a special coat to protect it from over 60 tons of underwater pressure, it also broke records in 2014 by swimming over 635 miles nonstop in 30 days, reported. Chinese military media have already speculated the country's armed forces could put Haiyi to military use.

"Since there is no power propulsion, the acoustic signature is extremely low. That characteristic suggests that [this platform] can have great significance for the military domain," Chinese defense magazine

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wrote last year, according to .

Haiyi would give China extensive eyes over the South China Sea, where the U.S. is challenging Beijing's extensive territorial claims, and the ability to anticipate enemy vessels in real time. The marginal sea, which is considered , covers an area of about 1,423,000 square miles and has an average depth of 3,478 feet, with a maximum depth of 16,457 feet at the China Sea Basin. It's also where the U.S. and its allies accuse China of , complete with an extensive communications array and potential missile launchers.





President Donald Trump has already approved a plan submitted by Defense Secretary James Mattis that would expand the Navy's presence in the contested waters, something China's ruling Communist Party said would "aggravate the regional military situation," according to its nationalistic mouthpiece,

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. The newspaper urged China's military "to strike back firmly and take necessary measures to safeguard China's territory and maritime rights and interests."


's domestic underwater glider reached a record-breaking depth of 6,329 meters during a mission in the .



The U.S. and China, the world's leading economies, have long differed over policy and often compete to surpass the other in military achievements. Earlier this year, detailed another Chinese sea drone, which was capable of skimming the ocean's surface, flying just 18 inches above water to keep it undetectable by ships due to the delicate curvature of the Earth. Avoiding less wind resistance due to its low height, the anti-ship drone can reportedly fly 600 miles per hour for 1.5 hours, giving it a range of 900 miles in the vast sea. It was also believed to be able to deliver a 2,000-pound explosive payload.

China's efforts to top the U.S. in drone technology have manifested in the air as well, with the Asian power beginning mass production of its Rainbow or Caihong-5 (CH-5) weaponized drone for foreign buyers. Its developers have boasted that the unmanned aerial vehicle can fly longer and is easier to use than its primary U.S. competitor, the General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper. CH-5, however, is believed to have a lower flight ceiling, making it vulnerable to surface-to-air fire.

OR

Here is the original report from SCMP. Interesting they test cooperative engagement of 12 underwater drone using real time data . If it successful it is a real breakthrough taht broke the back of the much vaunted underwater superiority

China is testing large-scale deployment of underwater drones in the South China Sea with real-time data transmission technology, a breakthrough that could help reveal and track the location of foreign submarines.

CHINA AT A GLANCE


A government research vessel dropped a dozen underwater gliders at an unspecified location in the South China Sea earlier this month, Xinhua reported on Saturday. It was the biggest joint operation conducted by Chinese unmanned gliders, according to the state news agency, and comes as the US vows to step up patrols in the disputed waters.

This latest effort by China to speed up and improve collection of deep-sea data in the South China Sea for its submarine fleet operation, coincides with US President Donald Trump’s reported approval of a plan to give the United States Navy more freedom to carry out patrols in the South China Sea – a move analysts say will add to uncertainties over Sino-US relations and regional security issues.




The plan, submitted to the White House in April by US defence secretary Jim Mattis, outlines a full-year schedule of when US navy ships will sail through contested waters in the South China Sea, the far-right Breitbart News website cited a US official as saying on Friday.

Such a move could be seen as a challenge to China’s maritime claims in the disputed waters.

Yu Jiancheng, chief scientist of the expedition commissioned by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said the 12 Haiyi (or “Sea Wing”) autonomous underwater vehicles would roam for one month and collect detailed information in the ocean on a host of topics including temperature, salinity, the cleanness of water, oxygen level and the speed and direction of sea currents.



“The data is being transmitted back to a land-based laboratory in real time,” meaning the information is sent out the moment it is collected under the water, Yu was quoted by Xinhua.

Yin Jingwei, dean of the college of underwater acoustic engineering at Harbin Engineering University, said that if the endeavour works as promised, “it is definitely a breakthrough”.
from on .

The university, formerly known as the PLA Military Engineering Institute, developed China’s first submarine. Yin was lead scientist in several military research projects on underwater communications.

“Real-time data transmission is extremely difficult for underwater gliders,” he said.

Drones of this type have been used in the past year on US Navy destroyers to locate submarines, according to Western media reports. They are called gliders because they use small wings and a buoyancy control mechanism to glide down and up in the water, and wave energy to propel themselves forward.



These machines can travel long distances without needing to recharge their batteries for weeks or even months. Equipped with multiple sensors, they not only can monitor the natural environment but also can pick up data of interest to military forces, such as the propeller noise or magnetic anomaly – meaning the disturbance in the magnetic field – caused by a nuclear submarine. And because the glider produces virtually no sound, its existence can be unknown to the sub.



But American gliding drones have one weakness, according to Yin.

“They can transmit data to a mother vessel or satellite, but only when they come up to the surface,” he said. This limitation can cause a time lag and discontinuity in the data stream, which can affect a military operation such as submarine tracking.



Although it would be surprising if China solved the problem ahead of the US, “I cannot rule out the possibility,” Yin said.

In January, China said it had built a deep-sea communications network in the western Pacific Ocean. The system allows sensors operating more than 400 metres below the surface to continuously transmit data to satellites through a grid of solar-powered buoys. Underwater data transmission can be carried out via cable or wirelessly by sound.


The Xinhua report did not say how communications among the gliders was achieved, or how far apart the drones were from one another.

Having effective communication among the gliders is important as it allows them to exchange location information that is vital for planning their movements in a region and avoiding collisions and other accidents.



“I think it could be very hard for them to spread out over a long distance,” Yin said. “If they do, each must carry a powerful data transmission device. It will take the underwater communication technology to its limit.”

Radio waves cannot travel in water. Long-distance underwater communication, therefore, relies almost exclusively on sound waves. But sound travels slowly, and can carry only a small amount of information.

Professor Zhu Min, a researcher with the Institute of Acoustics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who developed a long distance communication system for the Jiaolong, China’s most powerful operating submersible capable than can take three people down to a depth of 7,000 metres, said that in water, sound travels hundreds of times slower than electromagnetic waves can in the air.

And radio waves can be sent out over high-frequency bandwidths to transmit an enormous amount of data, often in megabits or gigabits per second.

That large volume of data can be reduced to a few kilobits once in water. “The fastest sound communication in water is slower than the dial-up modem in the earliest days of the Internet,” he said.



The small battery that gliders usually carry has limited power for long-distance data transmission, Zhu said. Because there is no satellite navigation system such as the Global Positioning System (GPS) or Beidou under the ocean, gliders need different technology to determine and inform one another of their whereabouts.

These technological challenges make massive deployment and coordination of underwater gliders very difficult, he said.

Thus, the Chinese underwater glider group must operate with tactics and strategy “quite different” from those of the large scale drone operation in the sky, according to the researchers.

“The underwater operation may give each glider more freedom to determine its own action due to the limited communication within the group,” Zhu said. “This means the individual unit needs to be equipped with a smarter brain to deal with various situations.”



Yin said that in the air, a large number of drones could be deployed to search for and zero in on one specific target. But in the water, the gliders more likely would be sent out to survey and monitor random targets within a region.

“These are different kind of approaches requiring different kind of strategic thinking,” he said.

This the working principle of sea glider very neat machine
I guess they can roam the sea for months end using this principle

This is from last year test on Marianna I think I already posted it before

PLA Navy eyes China’s deep-sea underwater glider after successful test shows it rivals US vessel

Chinese military’s interest piqued after Haiyi-7000 makes it 5,751 metres down world’s deepest ocean trench

PUBLISHED : Thursday, 01 September, 2016, 12:31pm
UPDATED : Monday, 12 June, 2017, 12:53pm









9 Jul 2017
Chinese researchers have just carried out the first test of what they believe will be the world’s deepest-reaching underwater glider – challenging the record held by a vessel now in use by the US Navy.

The Haiyi-7000 – carried on board the maiden voyage of China’s submersible mother ship, Tansuo-1 – was deployed above the Mariana Trench, in the western Pacific, an ocean trench with the greatest known ocean depth of 11,034 metres from late June to early August.

It was able to glide down to a depth of 5,751 metres and its progress has greatly interested the People’s Liberation Army Navy.




“We could have gone deeper, but we did not want to push it to the limit too early,” said Professor Yu Jiancheng, the lead scientist of the Haiyi project, in an exclusive interview with the South China Morning Post.



The present record depth for underwater gliding is 6,000 metres, set by the vessel Seaglider, developed by researchers at the University of Washington.

Scarlet, another submersible glider developed at Rutgers University, in the United States, made history as the first robot to swim across the Atlantic Ocean in 2009.

Both gliders were now being used by the US Navy.

The birth of China’s Haiyi was partly the result of “help” from the US, said Yu, an underwater robotic researcher at the Shenyang Institute of Automation, at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Liaoning province.



The idea of creating an underwater glider emerged during the early years of the cold war – the period of military and political tension between Western and Soviet bloc powers from 1945 to 1990.

The US took the lead in research for decades, and Washington and its allies banned the export of underwater gliders to China, fearing that the technology would be used to serve Beijing’s military purposes.



But Yu said it was this ban that encouraged the Chinese government to allocate resources to develop the technology itself.

Similar things had happened in other high-tech sectors, Yu said.

After Washington banned American technology company Intel from selling high-performance chips to China, Beijing built the world’s most powerful supercomputer TaihuLight using domestically produced central processing.



The US also banned China from the International Space Station, but now .

Haiyi, in Chinese, means “sea wings”. The underwater vessel is shaped like of a yellow torpedo with a pair of wings; its number denotes the maximum depth in metres to which it could dive.

To travel so far underwater, Haiyi needs to shrink in size to increase its density.

The vessel then inflates to increase its buoyancy in order to move upwards.

During each rise and fall, Haiyi’s wings drive the vehicle to move forwards, the same way that a glider travels through the air.

The vessel’s deflation and inflation is controlled by a balloon-like device filled with pressurised oil.



A submersible glider works by drawing free power from the natural buoyance of water to move around without an engine or motor.


It can cruise noiselessly beneath the surface of an entire ocean without human intervention for days, months, or a year – all the while collecting data for scientific research and monitoring environment in vast areas.



When necessary,an underwater glider could also switch into action against a designated target, such as submarine.

It can be let loose individually, or as part of a group of hundreds like a pack of wolves roaming over a steppe for prey.

China’s underwater glider experiment was carried out on board Tansuo-1, the academy’s new 94-metre long ship, which is part of China’s rapidly expanding scientific research fleet.

The ship completed its first voyage – returning to harbour in Sanya on August 12 – after carrying other advanced deep-sea exploration equipment developed by Chinese researchers.

It also transported a deep-sea robot, called Haidou, which is able to operate below a depth of 10,000 metres while collecting mineral and marine life samples on the world’s deepest sea beds.

Yu said the test run of Haiyi went surprisingly well.



“Going deep turned out to be easier than we previously thought,” he said.


“In very deep water you don’t need to worry about sharks or fish nets. It’s really peaceful and quiet down there.”

Yu’s team was one of a number of research groups in China that have been developing underwater glider technology.

Other gliders included the Haiyan, which was developed by researchers at Tianjin University, and several classified models that are currently being tested by the PLA Navy.



Yu’s work started years ago, but up until 2014 the maximum depth achieved by Haiyi and other Chinese underwater gliders was no greater than 1,500 metres.

To go deeper underwater, the scientists had to overcome the challenge of building a glider using a lightweight material that was also extremely strong so that it could withstand tremendous pressures. Only a handful of nations are able to develop such technologies.

The Chinese researchers were also working under a time pressure because of demand to create deep-sea exploration vehicles from the government.

In recent years, the nation had significantly increased its scientific activities in the oceans, where much of the world’s untapped energy and mineral resources can be found.

The demand for such vehicles was also to meet military requirements.

The relatively simple sensors on the current version of Haiyi were able to measure the temperature and salinity of sea water at various depth, but this information was also of interest to the PLA as valuable intelligence, Yu said.

(cont)
“The military can use the temperature and salt-level data from the deep to build a complete, precise model of the physical ocean,” Yu said.

The model will help submarines to avoid dangerous areas and predict the occurrence of deathtrap currents, which might jeopardise a naval operation.”

Yu refused to confirm when and whether the Haiyi-7000 would serve the PLA Navy.

According to an article on the website of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a 1,000-metre version of Haiyi has already been deployed in the western areas of the South China Sea, where China and Vietnam have territorial disputes.



At the moment, the cost of an underwater glider was about 100 million yuan (HK$116 million) on the international market, but Yu said he expected the price would drop sharply once mass production started.

With improved technology, the vessel would also be able to carry a greater variety of sensors – perhaps even weapons with the capability of damaging or destroying a military target.

“An underwater glider comes with a structure that is much less sophisticated than that of a car,” Yu said.

“A small car in China can be sold for only 30,000 to 40,000 yuan. I think the glider won’t be more expensive than that if the annual production runs to hundreds of thousands,” he said.

Yu declined to reveal more technical details about Haiyi, such as how long it could operate after being deployment and how far it could travel.

The glider carries a high-density lithium battery, which provides energy for its sensors. It also needs power when beaming data to satellites.

“We are aiming for something that can cross the Pacific Ocean,” Yu said.

Here is the video of large scale glider deployment. Any one what is this a kind of underwater sensor?



Scientific development - Comprehensive scientific expedition "Science number" Return to Hong Kong: the largest underwater glider network observation completed

Now the Australian pick up this important breakthrough
The Key is underwater communication in real time China achieved this first. The US system need the drone to surface in order to transmit the data over to the satellite so it is not real time
Now that they networked this drone and last year diving record of 6 km. I believe the system is close to operational if not already operational. this is only one of several drone system some of which are more confidential and not published. Combined with data fusion and data link Sossus, Surtass, MPA KQ200, Type 56A, Yu 8, Z15.the new super sensitive MAD array The great underwater great wall is come to realization with every day


BEIJING has released a fleet of 12 underwater spy drones to scour the South China Sea — and report back instantly on anything significant they may find.

The torpedo-shaped drones are called ‘Haiyi’, or ‘sea wings’.

The at the weekend, ostensibly to collect environmental data. They’re expected to remain active for about a month.

“The gliders have collected detailed maritime information, including temperature, salinity, turbidity, oxygen levels as well as the intensity and direction of currents,” scientists Yu Jiancheng told Chinese state media service Xinhua.

But their capabilities — particularly in disputed waters — also have military intelligence applications.

“The data is being transmitted back to a land-based laboratory in real time,” the expedition’s chief scientist told Chinese state media service Xinhua. The submersible drones are also virtually silent.


A model of the Haiyi 'sea-wing' surveillance drone. Capable of high speeds and endurance of more than a month, it is also reported to be virtually silent. Picture: Chinese state mediaSource:Supplied

Both are capabilities the United States has been struggling to attain, .

In December last year, a Chinese naval vessel siezed a US underwater research drone being operated in waters claimed by both Beijing and the Philippines, near Scarborough Shoal.

If being used as silent underwater eyes, such drones would be able to observe the movements of ships above, and possibly even submarines.

It’s a fast and quiet surveillance capability in the hotly contested South China Sea that could give Beijing’s military an edge, enabling its new combat-jet and missile-armed artificial island fortresses the ability to act faster than anticipated.

Earlier this week, Beijing again threatened ‘stern counteractions’ against any move to challenge its self-declared soverignty over the heavily travelled waterway between Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia.

“If the US military continues FONOPs near China’s islands in the name of freedom of navigation, this will only impede peace and stability in the South China Sea. Countries having disputes with China in the waters are likely to consider these US moves as supportive and hence take risky actions to challenge China’s sovereignty and maritime claims,” . “This will meet stern counteractions from China.”


Chinese drone breaks deep dive record
China has been rapidly advancing drone technology over recent years. Now it’s regarded a world leader.

China’s Academy of Sciences reportedly tested the Haiyi at a depth of just over 6km. This is significantly deeper than the previous record set by the US.

In 2014, an earlier model was reportedly capable of travelling over 1000km in 30 days.

Beijing boasts the new Haiyi sea gliders represent a significant upgrade over this, with reduced energy consumption and better efficiency resulting in greater endurance.

Another sea-skimming drone was unveiled earlier this year, skipping across the surface with just centimetres of clearance. It can reportedly cover 1500km at about 1000km/h.

Seem like there is competition to deploy this glider network. Now Tianjing University come up with their version of network sea glider

The Tianjin University Petrel II submarine glider performs networking tests in the South China Sea ... (1/2)