Anti-interference antennae first adopted by China’s BeiDou satellite navigation system will be replicated and put onto missiles of the People’s Liberation Army, to make them more immune to radio or signal jamming while being guided by Chinese satellites.
A Beijing-based navigation technology firm attending this year’s China Satellite Navigation Exhibition in Harbin told the People’s Daily that the indigenous missile-borne anti-interference antennae could shield PLA missiles from jamming devices that target signals between missiles and the BeiDou satellites.
The antennae utilize “array signal processing” to track multiple energy sources. They can help PLA missiles transmit and receive signals as close as 100 meters from an enemy’s jamming device.
Similar antennae are also said to have been installed on the J-15 fighters and H-6K bombers on board China’s aircraft carrier.
But Beijing Li Gong Navigation Technology Co, which has signed a deal with the PLA to provide such anti-jamming antennae, declined to reveal the specific types of missiles that would be fitted with the device.
This was a further admission by a major Beijing mouthpiece that the BeiDou system has a significant military role to play.
In a program aired by state broadcaster China Central TV in December 2014, a commentator revealed that the BeiDou system could guide and correct the trajectory of the PLA’s key nuclear deterrent – the DF-41 intercontinental ballistic missile, which has a range of up to 15,000 kilometers – so multiple thermonuclear warheads could hit targets “virtually anywhere on the planet”.