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Chinese scientists say new stealth tech for submarines can ‘cancel out’ US Navy sonar
- Sound-emitting tile made of costly rare earth elements can turn powerful US sonar tech against itself, Beijing researchers say
- Low-frequency, high-decibel sound produced can cause enemy sonar operator to mistake the submarine for water, team says in paper
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Stephen Chenin Beijing
A research team in China says it has created a new coating device that could help submarines evade advanced enemy sonar by mimicking water.
The tile-like device can analyse enemy sonar frequency, and generate opposing sound waves to cause the sonar operator to mistake the submarine for water, the researchers said.
Low-frequency sounds produced by the tiles can reach an intensity of up to 147 decibels, which is louder than a rock concert and sufficient to “cancel out” some of the most powerful active sonars used by the US military or its allies, according to the team from the Beijing Institute of Technology.
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A complete unit of the device is less than half the size and thickness of a brick, allowing engineers to stick them all over the hull of a submarine to tackle sonar beams from different directions.
“The submarine surface coating widely used by the world’s naval powers is the anechoic tile,” the researchers said in their paper published in Chinese-language peer-reviewed journal Acta Armamentarii last month.
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