Until the second decade of this century, three directions of development passed and are now being pursued in the industry of the planet - steam, electron, atom. “Currently, the world is moving to the fourth level, based on photon technologies,” noted the well-known head of the domestic defense industry, head of the working group No. 19 of the Scientific and Technical Council of the Military-Industrial Commission under the Government of the Russian Federation, Academician of the Moscow Aviation Institute Alexei Shulunov, “these technologies use the properties of photons, particles that have no rest mass and charge, which makes it possible to overcome the fundamental physical limitations of "classical" electronics. One of its most important areas is radiophotonics”.
In the West, radiophotonics is denoted by the term mwp-microwavephotonics, in Russia, at the suggestions of Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Yuri Vasilievich Gulyaev and Academician of the Moscow Aviation Institute Alexei Nikolaevich Shulunov, the term "radiophotonics" is adopted, which is already accepted by some Western experts.
It is based on the modulation of laser radiation with a microwave signal for further transformations already in the optical range. Replacing an electron with a photon makes it possible to improve the functional construction of radio equipment, to remove the issues of electromagnetic compatibility, to increase the speed and volume of information transmission by several orders of magnitude, to significantly reduce the weight, dimensions and power consumption, for example, of the same long-range and ultra-long-range radars.
"The understanding of the inevitability of replacing electronic circuitry solutions with radio-photonic ones," notes Aleksey Nikolaevich, "came in connection with the achievement of the limiting technological characteristics of integrated microelectronics, the transition to smaller dimensions of components due to a multiple decrease in the length of optical waves."
The USA, EU, Japan, South Korea and China are the leaders in the world in radio-photon technologies.
WE HAVE EVEN THE ADVANCED WITH SCRIPP
“I witnessed and participated in the transition of the radio-electronic industry from vacuum to solid-state, which took place in the USSR and the world from the late 50s - early 60s of the last century,” says Alexei Shulunov, “but at the beginning of the new century, I noticed that the world is already there is a grandiose transition to new technologies - radio-photonic, at first discrete component technologies, and from 2012–2014 - to integrated ones. New equipment and measuring equipment are being created, personnel are being trained, new specialties are emerging, and a complete production infrastructure is being organized."
It is worth noting that the first photonics roadmap began operating in Russia since 2013. In 2016, by decree of the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin, the second edition of the road map was launched. The Photonics Technology Platform also came into effect. However, in one of the domestic projects of the concept for the development of photonics, it is emphasized that funds for the development and implementation of technologies based on it are required several orders of magnitude less than for the development of radio electronics technologies. And this, according to Alexei Shulunov, is an unforgivable mistake. “Without changing the attitude in the country and departments to the development of new photonic technical solutions,” says Aleksey Shulunov, “in three or four years, the entire Russian industry, especially its radio-electronic industry, will lag so far behind in the development of these technologies that it will be engaged in import substitution, with incredible difficulties. solving this problem”.
And above all, the most important issue requiring its urgent solution is the issue of creating a domestic component base for radio photonics. Its component base is based on A3B5 materials (gallium arsenide, gallium nitride, indium phosphite …), which have both optical and radio-technical properties. For their creation, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Zhores Alferov was awarded the Nobel Prize. Without them, it is impossible to create radio-photonic equipment.
There are separate technologies in the country for some discrete components of photonic radio electronics with the level of development of the late 90s. However, in science and industry there is no groundwork for modern serial discrete and integral performance of photonics components. The work is constrained by the lack of modern materials, software products for modeling components and extremely scarce funding. Scientific research institutes (SRIs) and design bureaus (KB) of the industry have practically no material and instrumental base, as well as trained personnel for developing new industrial technologies, creating capacities for the production of final products.
Only a few enterprises in the domestic defense-industrial complex (DIC), some research institutes fully possess such a modern technological base of production. On the discrete component base of radiophotonics, separate projects are being implemented at the Scientific Research Institute Polyus, the Scientific Research Institute of Semiconductor Physics and the Scientific Research Institute of Automation and Electrometry of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, some scientific institutes located in St. Petersburg, Perm, Tomsk, at the enterprises of JSC RTI. Separate final pilot prototypes are being created at KRET JSC, Radar-mms JSC, NPK NIIDAR: an active phased antenna array (AFAR) of a fifth-generation radar using the latest radio-photon component base. And at MEPhI, a full-cycle technology has been developed up to the creation of an element base of the appropriate size on a substrate.
However, in general, the state of radio photonics in the country - the technological base, the available personnel potential, the organization of work, - as Alexei Shulunov noted, clearly requires active action.
WORKING GROUP No. 19 NTS VPK
In 2012, according to Alexei Shulunov, together with Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, scientific director of the Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics Yuri Gulyaev, they raised the problem of developing a new direction of radio electronics based on new physical principles in Russia. First Deputy Chairman of the Military-Industrial Commission Yuri Borisov got acquainted with the memo prepared by them. He ordered the creation of a working group No. 19 of the NTS VPK on radio photonics, headed by Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Igor Fedorov. This group included scientists and specialists from a number of scientific and industrial enterprises from different regions of the country, including Aleksey Shulunov. As a result, a draft plan for the development and transition of science and industry in Russia to a new technological order was drawn up. The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation became interested in these developments and began to support them. The use of radio-photonics in the corresponding component base, which must be created, will change the functional structure of all current radio-electronic equipment - guidance, detection, reconnaissance, and radar equipment.
In 2014, under the leadership of working group No. 19 of the NTS VPK, RTI carried out research work (R&D) to assess the state of radio photonics in the world and in Russia, and developed a corresponding draft program for its development. This work has shown that in order to overcome our lag, the required annual costs should amount to about 2–3 billion rubles. for research and development of technologies and 6-7 billion rubles. - for technical re-equipment and equipping with measuring instruments, not counting the training and internship of personnel.
IN LEADERS - RADIOELECTRONIC VETERAN
Group No. 19 and Aleksey Shulunov directly assessed the potential of a number of domestic defense enterprises in the radio-electronic industry for the development and further promotion of radio-photon technologies. In all respects, the country's oldest research institute for long-distance radio communications has become the head enterprise in the new industry. Therefore, Aleksey Shulunov, in addition to working in the working group No. 19 of the military-industrial complex, headed the laboratory for radiophotonics at NIIDAR. “We currently have all radars, including early warning, are relatively narrow-band,” said Alexey Nikolaevich, who turned 80 in December 2017. - In broadband radars using a radio-photon component base, you can achieve up to 90% of the information about the target being located, find out what is found in the air or outer space: an airplane, a rocket, a wreck, a meteorite. Such radars of various ranges and powers, including early warning, acquire the properties of complexes capable of creating a portrait of an object detected by a radar, which is currently only capable of a huge radio-optical complex for recognizing space objects "Krona" of the National Space Control System (SKKP) on Mount Chapal in Karachay-Cherkessia. And with radio-photon microchip technology, there will be a radical reduction in the size, weight, power consumption of the equipment complex of the radar and a significant increase in its tactical characteristics. Only antenna systems of impressive size will remain from the giant radars of early warning systems, SKKP, PRN."
An experimental X-band radar with an optical heterodyne, which can be tuned in the widest range of radio waves, has already been created in the NIIDAR laboratory. This is a unique device. The receiver makes it possible to unify the hardware solutions on any radar receiving channel of practically all frequency ranges. He alone can operate on several receiving antennas. Thanks to radio-photon technologies, the size of the equipment will be significantly reduced and its reliability will increase.
Scientific and thematic center No. 5 has also been created at NIIDAR, whose task is to comprehensively cover and organize work in all areas of the tasks of creating the radio photonics industry. In fact, this may already be a working body of the Interdepartmental Commission of the President of the Russian Federation for the Innovative Development of Russia. The center's technical tasks include participation in the creation of an integral and discrete component base, the creation of new radio equipment and radio engineering systems, issues of metrology and standardization, international cooperation, including with the BRICS countries, and a host of other topics in radio photonics. The oldest and most respected radio-electronic enterprise in Russia and the world, as noted by Alexei Shulunov, has all the possibilities for such work. It is only necessary to unite efforts on the transition to new technologies in industry, to make the state program really workable and to control its implementation in a state manner. Applying radiophotonics to specific tasks of creating radars, the company is already developing technologies for a wide range of military and civilian products.
So, the transition to the latest technologies, which are essential for the defense of the Russian state, which will make it possible to create perfect electronic weapons and keep up with the "partners", is taking place, among other things, thanks to the talents of the engineer Alexei Shulunov.
