Since they debuted in World War I, military radios have played a vital role in sending strategic messages via electromagnetic waves, but it has always been a deadly game of hide-and-seek.
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The devices present a dilemma: crucial communication at the risk of simultaneously broadcasting the location of their users to adversaries, exposing forces to interception, jamming and missile strikes.
But the cat-and-mouse game may soon be over. Chinese researchers have claimed a breakthrough that enables high-speed battlefield communication while ensuring the units sending signals remain in absolute radio silence.
One expert, who described the communication technology as “telepathy”, said it could potentially make People’s Liberation Army combat units invisible in electronic warfare.
Led by senior engineer Liu Kaiyu with the Aerospace Information Research Institute, under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the team detailed the innovation in a paper in the peer-reviewed Journal of Radars on June 24.
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Liu’s team developed a system that allows tanks, warships or aircraft to send vast amounts of data without emitting any active signals.