Chinese scientists develop Death Star-style beam weapon like in Star Wars franchise

Scientists in China say they have developed a Death Star-style beam weapon.

Although it’s not clear whether the boffins were inspired by the Star Wars franchise, they claim to have created a novel type of microwave weapon. Their new bit of technology is said to combine several high-powered electromagnetic waves to make a high-energy beam to attack a single target. In the 1977 movie Star Wars: A New Hope, Darth Vadar’s space station destroys Princess Leia’s home planet Alderaan.

The Empire harnesses the power of eight laser beams converged to a single point, making a super-laser to obliterate the world.

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And, in a move similar to the sci-fi classic, the electromagnetic waves are allegedly being concentrated to produce a similar effect.

The weapon system comprises multiple microwave-transmitting vehicles stationed at various locations. Each vehicle fires microwaves with high-precision synchronisation. These merge into a potent energy beam designed to attack a single target.

However, according to Live Science, the process is a lot harder than it seems, due to microwaves being narrow beams of energy that need to be precisely aligned to then converge. This means that the timings with which they are fired need to be controlled to within millionths of a second.

According to the research team, it’s essential for each microwave vehicle to be positioned within a millimetre. China’s BeiDou satellite navigation system can provide accuracy to 0.4 inch (1cm), but this is not sufficient for the new weapon system’s requirements.

In an intriguing engineering feat, laser-ranging auxiliary positioning gadgets have been fitted onto each transmitting vehicle to secure millimetre-precision in the positioning system. To ensure accuracy the vehicles must be perfectly horizontal, any unevenness in terrain means microwave emissions could miss their mark.

The timing for triggering these devices is unimaginably tight; they must fire within a mere 170 picoseconds (that’s 170 trillionths of a second).

To tackle this timing issue head-on, boffins linked the transmitters with optical fibres guaranteeing immaculate synchronization. Moreover, each vehicle was brought under the wing of a roving command centre for on-the-spot direction.

However, Live Science points out that microwaves cannot operate over long distances as dust and moisture scatter the waves. While it can be countered by increasing the power, doing so presents significant logistical challenges as batteries currently do not have the energy storage capacity to provide that amount of energy.

So, while it’s plausible the Chinese research team has managed to develop a converging microwave weapon system in a controlled setting, putting it into practice in the real world, and all its challenges for any precision technology, could be more problematic.