Chapter 882 Optoelectronic Data Transmission

Listening to the argument between Han Zhigao and Huo Penghua, Chang Haonan also felt a little dizzy.

Of course, he has done a lot of projects like this that are implemented at a specific level.

But for the vast majority of them, whether it is airplanes or aircraft engines, they are their own specialties.

Even if you have never eaten pork before your rebirth, at least you have seen a pig run.

It’s not difficult to get started.

As for the few that don't count, such as the previous heavy-duty die forging presses and the earlier soft abrasive polishing technology, there is always relatively mature experience to learn from. The former even has a semi-finished plan for the overall design.

In fact, he just needs to solve some key problems.

However, this time we are facing brand new challenges.

Ultrashort pulse laser processing equipment is literally created from scratch.

Even the theory was developed bit by bit by him.

Not to mention the engineering level.

There were no precedents for him to refer to, not to mention in China or abroad.

Just a little bit of exploration.

However, Chang Haonan knew that he couldn't let the two continue arguing like this.

Normal work collisions are fine, but if you get angry, it will inevitably affect the progress of subsequent projects.

"Team Leader Huo."

He interrupted the argument by saying:

"If we ignore the limitations of volume and mass for now, and only consider the technical aspects, can we meet Team Leader Han's needs?"

This type of equipment does not need to be considered for export. Once it is built, it will most likely be left in place for more than ten years or even longer, so it does not matter if it is large in size.

The most we can do is to build it directly on the original site in Shengjing.

Just treat it as part of infrastructure construction.

This idea made Huo Penghua stunned.

He had never seen such a strange request in his career.

But if you think about it carefully, many engineering problems are indeed caused by size limitations. If you let yourself go in this regard, you can indeed avoid many problems.

Han Zhigao, who had just been arguing with him, also began to seriously consider the feasibility of this idea.

As far as the optical path is concerned, although the increase in the size of the equipment will lead to a longer propagation distance, this is not a problem for lasers. Scattering and attenuation will not become unacceptable just because the distance increases from 1 meter to 10 meters or 20 meters.

On the contrary, the precision requirements for some parts can be reduced.

Everything looks great.

However, Huo Penghua finally shook his head:

"Even if there are no restrictions on size and weight, the most we can do is solve the problems of electromagnetic radiation and transmission bandwidth. However, delay, synchronization rate and loss will still exist, and may even become more serious due to the increase in size..."

At this time, Academician Hou Xun also intervened:

"And a lot of electronic leakage, noise and distortion are not caused by the transmission process, but by the signal conversion process, which has little to do with the size of your device."

This is basically the final conclusion.

Chang Haonan had no choice but to put this somewhat unconventional idea aside for the time being and start considering other possibilities.

Fortunately, after this interruption, Han Zhigao and Huo Penghua no longer had any interest in continuing the verbal confrontation.

"Technically."

A few minutes later, Huo Penghua spoke again:

"The use of magnetostatic wave devices and superconducting wires is..."

As soon as he uttered these words, the comrade in charge of material support from the third group looked at him with a very unfriendly look, which immediately silenced him.

What a joke! If anyone can achieve room-temperature superconductivity, he or she can just wait to win the Nobel Prize.

Obviously unrealistic.

For a moment, the conference room fell silent again.

"Low loss, large bandwidth, small radiation, high resolution..."

Chang Haonan listed a series of requirements for the entire data signal processing process in the notebook in front of him.

Then, another possibility suddenly occurred to me.

A whole new possibility.

"What if we modulate the signal onto light?"

Chang Haonan's words suddenly broke the silence.

However, even for the experts present, this statement was a bit awkward, so no one responded immediately.

So he explained it further:

"I mean, use optical electronic signals instead of electrical signals in the whole system?"

The moment before he opened his mouth for the second time, Chang Haonan suddenly had an intuition.

So while he was speaking, he threw his overall idea to the system for verification.

Although this idea is not perfect, it requires an extremely high number of scientific research points to perfect it.

But this undoubtedly shows that...

The idea works!

This gave Chang Haonan full confidence, and he immediately continued:

"The optical carrier frequency is very high, so the signal bandwidth is narrow relative to the carrier frequency. The transmission characteristics of the line are inherently more stable. In addition, the signal loss rate of optical fiber transmission is almost negligible compared to traditional coaxial cables or waveguides. There is no electromagnetic radiation problem at all, and even the electromagnetic shielding layer can be saved..."

In fact, his inspiration also comes from his old profession——

Starting from the second decade of the 21st century, some technologically radical aircraft models began to further upgrade fly-by-wire flight control to fly-by-light flight control.

The two are similar in principle and design, but use optical fiber instead of traditional cables, which has higher potential in aircraft weight reduction and signal feedback efficiency.

Previously, Chang Haonan had even considered whether China's aircraft design could skip the fly-by-wire era and directly enter the optical fiber transmission era.

However, upon careful consideration, there are still a large number of signal sources such as radar on the aircraft that rely on electromagnetic radiation. Therefore, if we switch to optoelectronic control, not only will a complex electrical-optical-electrical conversion process be required, but the radar signal may also be further contaminated by optical path noise or interference, thus causing new aberrations and distortions.

In general, it is too difficult to use on small aircraft.

As for using it on large aircraft...

It is technically feasible.

For example, the world's first model to use fly-by-light flight control is the P1 anti-submarine aircraft.

But let’s not talk about the fact that China doesn’t have a proper large aircraft. Even if it does, large aircraft are not sensitive to weight, volume and handling efficiency, and it seems difficult to bring out the advantages of the optical control system.

The P1's fly-by-light flight control is more of a technology verification.

So this idea was put aside for the time being.

But then again.

At present, this laser processing equipment does not rely on electromagnetic radiation to work. On the contrary, its core equipment is still a set of light sources.

Although high-energy laser beams and optoelectronic signals are completely different things, at least the electro-optical-electrical conversion system that must be present on the aircraft is eliminated.

Overcome it once and for all...

Well, not really.

It should be that the two biggest problems have been circumvented.

At the same time, after a brief thought, other people in the conference room also gradually realized the feasibility of this plan.

Especially Huo Penghua.

"It seems that there is more to it..."

His eyes gradually brightened:

"Because of the characteristics of ultrashort pulse lasers, we need a very high-frequency control signal to meet the needs of high-precision processing. The low loss of optical fiber is independent of frequency, so high-frequency signals can be directly transmitted in the link in their original form without down-conversion or digitization, and two rounds of signal conversion processes can be omitted..."

As Academician Hou just said, the adverse effects caused by the signal conversion process are difficult to eliminate.

But now we have directly cut off two of the process, which is naturally a dimensionality reduction attack.

"But this also means that we need to start from scratch and redesign a whole set of components related to optoelectronic signals."

Academician Hou said as he looked at Huo Penghua at the other end of the conference table:

"Penghua, the burden on you is even heavier now."

Before the latter could respond, Chang Haonan added:

“It’s not just a matter of components.”

"The foundations of optoelectronic transmission, such as the modeling of optical switch characteristics, switch crosstalk and delay errors in optical switch delay networks, and the impact of these crosstalk and errors on array patterns and pulse compression...the technical accumulation in these areas is relatively weak, and we may need to build them up."

"Team Leader Huo, I can apply for some more people in the optoelectronics field for you, but considering the nature of the project, the number should not be particularly large."

Things have come to this point, and there is no other way for Huo Penghua.

Furthermore, compared with the traditional technical route that has no way out at all, the future of optical transmission system at least seems bright.

As for how tortuous the road is...

I can't take care of it now.

"Boss Chang, Academician Hou, I promise to do my best to complete the task!"

He immediately stood up and expressed his opinion.

Chang Haonan nodded with satisfaction. After thinking for a moment, he looked at Academician Hou on his left:

"Academician Hou, Team Leader Huo's tasks are indeed very heavy, and my theoretical research is progressing smoothly, so I am thinking, maybe you can also give me a copy of Team Leader Huo's progress?"

In fact, he was planning to bypass the latter and take Huo Penghua's R&D team directly into his own hands.

After all, although Chang Haonan does not have enough scientific research points to complete the entire project directly, if Huo Penghua can provide specific problems and ideas, then it should be no problem to guide the specific research and development path.

But Hou Xun is an academician after all, so he still has to symbolically seek other people's opinions.

Academician Hou certainly understood the meaning behind this sentence, so he followed suit:

"How about this, Mr. Chang? When Penghua submits the project progress report in the future, he should submit a copy to each of us?"

We are all decent people.

As the project leader, Chang Haonan still holds the final say.

Others may respect him, but he has to be respectful in return.

"Well, the next task is decided."

Chang Haonan let out a long sigh and glanced at the dozen or so core members attending the meeting in front of him:

"Team Leader Huo, please stay alone after the meeting. Let's discuss more specific R&D issues."

"Everyone else...dismiss!"