New vessel radar detects 70cm object from 10km
Hyundai Heavy Industries, in cooperation with a national research center and small-to-medium-sized businesses, successfully developed a new generational “vessel digital radar” which provides resolution two times that of conventional radars.
The company announced on July 2 that it will arrange a promotional briefing session regarding the new development at Hotel Hyundai in Donggu, Ulsan.
The new radar supersedes its previous version with improved resolution power, which allows it to detect objects as small as 70 centimeter from 10 kilometers away.
Its core element, solid state power amplifier (SSPA), has a lifespan of 50,000 hours, 16 times that of its predecessor good for 3,000 hours. The scope of its application is also expected to be expanded to military uses, marine facilities and aviation fields.
The development of the radar is part of a joint project of economic regions in Ulsan and Busan, and participated in since July 2010 by a consortium of ten groups, including Hyundai Heavy Industries, Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), Ulsan Economic Promotion Agency, Korea Marine Equipment Research Institute and several small-to-medium-sized businesses.
Vessel radars, also known as “vessel eye”, have been struggling in S. Korean market and depended on overseas suppliers like Japan and European countries because of a lack of required technologies and unmatched level of performance by foreign providers.
Hyundai plans to have the radar certified by major ship classification agencies, including DNV of Norway, by the second half of 2014 and commercialize it starting from 2015.
Hyundai is also planning to introduce a new integrated vessel operation system that utilizes the new radar along with “Smartship 2.0,” another vessel operation-related system upgraded from its previous version Smartship 1.0.
Hwang Si-young, head of the Management of Technology Department at Hyundai Heavy Industries, said, “Beginning with the development of digital radars, S. Korea will start introducing major vessel operation systems that will lead today’s shipbuilding industry and open up a new vessel service market.”