Chapter 152: Torch Dragon Eye

In the cafeteria of the Longyin Research Institute, Wang Hao carried a tray piled high like a mountain and sat down opposite Chen Guang, shaking the soy milk bowl on the table.

"Guangzi, did you see the news?" He took a big bite of a deep-fried dough stick, saying vaguely.

"Eagle Country issued a statement saying that their 'Vanguard' missile deviated from its course because of a 'sudden navigation system failure'.

Expressing 'gratitude' for our 'professional handling' — I spit! Gratitude my ass!"

Chen Guang peeled an egg in a leisurely manner, his eyes fixed on the data stream on the tablet:

"Just a political statement. The point is that 'failure analysis report' they released."

He pulled up a file and pushed it over.

Wang Hao glanced at it twice and laughed: "Yo, these failure codes are quite realistic, 'gyroscope signal drift', 'aerodynamic rudder surface response delay'..."

"If I hadn't seen with my own eyes that thing perform a 25G barrel roll, I would have almost believed it."

"But they admitted the missile crashed in the sea near Footbasin Chicken." Chen Guang said.

"Footbasin Chicken issued a protest this morning, demanding Eagle Country compensate for the 'potential marine environmental risks caused by the missile crashing into the sea'."

"Dogs biting dogs." Wang Hao sneered.

"But speaking of which, Guangzi, that move of yours yesterday was really cool."

"A little over three seconds, directly burned through the missile's butt."

"I watched it in the command center and my blood was boiling."

Chen Guang pushed up his glasses and didn't take the bait: "The interception was successful, but the problems were also exposed."

"The 7.3-second reaction time is too long, the turbulence compensation still has a 22% error, and..."

He pulled up the energy consumption curve: "A single interception consumes energy equivalent to three days of the institute's daily electricity usage."

"Zhao Kaiyuan sent me twelve emails last night, each emphasizing that 'the energy bottleneck must be broken'."

"Old Zhao just loves to worry." Wang Hao finished the last sip of soy milk.

"Let's go, let's go, to the laboratory. Brother Hao has a brilliant idea today, guaranteed to help your laser system save electricity!"

Nine o'clock in the morning, special test field.

This was originally an outdoor venue used by the institute to test mech maneuverability, now it had been temporarily renovated.

A ten-meter-high tower was erected in the center of the field, with a scaled-down laser emitter installed on top.

Although it was only one-third the size of the actual equipment, it had all the necessary systems.

Around the tower, more than a dozen targets of different shapes were distributed.

Some were moving at a constant speed on tracks, some were swinging irregularly, and the furthest one was placed 300 meters away, only the size of a palm.

Chen Guang stood in front of the console, with Wang Hao, Li Yang, and Zhao Kaiyuan standing beside him.

Zhao Gong and Li Kui also came, the two old masters standing slightly further away, smoking and discussing something in low voices.

"Simulation test starting." Chen Guang's voice spread throughout the field through the loudspeaker.

"Today's goal is to verify the improved adaptive optics system and the new prediction algorithm."

He pressed the start button.

The laser emitter on the tower turned slightly, and the lens group made a faint humming sound.

"Step one, static target."

A red light beam, almost invisible to the naked eye, shot out, precisely hitting the center point of a fixed steel plate 50 meters away.

A red dot appeared on the surface of the steel plate, then began to melt, and a few seconds later, it burned through a regular round hole.

"Precision meets the standard." Chen Guang recorded the data.

"Step two, moving target."

The target on the track began to move laterally at a speed of ten meters per second.

The laser beam followed, steadily "biting" the bullseye, burning a straight line.

"Tracking performance is good."

"Step three, irregularly moving target."

The target doing pendulum motion began to sway.

The laser beam shook slightly this time, but quickly adjusted, burning a winding but continuous trajectory on the target surface.

Chen Guang nodded and pulled up the final test item.

"Step four, simulate atmospheric turbulence interference."

Around the field, eight high-power heaters started simultaneously, spewing high-temperature airflow.

These airflows formed complex heat wave disturbances on the laser path—simulating the refractive index changes caused by uneven temperature in the real atmosphere.

The previously stable laser beam instantly became blurry and scattered, the light spot hitting the target expanding from the size of a fingernail to the size of a bowl, and the energy density dropped sharply.

"Look, the problem is out." Chen Guang pointed to the monitoring screen.

"Turbulence causes the beam to diffuse, and energy cannot be concentrated."

"In actual combat, this means a longer irradiation time is needed to achieve damage effects."

"And hypersonic targets won't give us that much time."

Wang Hao touched his chin: "So you have to let the beam 'pass through' the turbulence without scattering?"

"To be precise, it's to let the optical system perceive the turbulence distribution in real-time, and then dynamically adjust the mirror shape to compensate for the refractive changes." Chen Guang pulled up the principle diagram.

"Like this—"

The screen showed the distortion process of an ideal laser passing through turbulent atmosphere, and then a set of complex lens groups began to deform.

Distorting the beam in reverse, finally making the outgoing light return to parallel.

"This is called adaptive optics technology, astronomical telescopes have been using it for decades." Chen Guang said.

"But our challenge is: turbulence changes extremely fast, mirror adjustment must keep up;"

"And our system must be small in volume, light in weight, and able to be mounted on mobile platforms."

Zhao Gong walked over at this time, holding a small notebook: "We tried seventeen formulas for the lens material."

"The one we finally chose has a fast enough response speed and good thermal stability, it's just a bit brittle, need to be careful during assembly."

"It's already 40% better than last week's sample." Chen Guang smiled rarely, "Zhao Lao's craftsmanship, nothing to say."

"Don't flatter me." Zhao Gong waved his hand, but the corners of his mouth were clearly raised, "What's next to test?"

"Test my new algorithm." Chen Guang turned to the console.

"'Torch Dragon', load 'Neural Fuzzy Prediction Model V3', connect to real-time turbulence sensor data stream."

【Model loaded. Sensor data fusion in progress... establishing real-time turbulence field 3D mapping...】

A few seconds later, a dynamic 3D airflow map appeared on the monitoring screen.

Different colors represented air masses of different temperatures and densities, rolling and flowing on the laser path, like a pot of boiling soup.

And at the same time, the lens group of the laser emitter began to fine-tune at an unprecedented frequency.

The mirror surface fluctuated like water, each fluctuation precisely canceling out the distortion effect of the airflow in front.

The light beam condensed again.

"Hit that small target." Chen Guang pointed to the palm-sized target 300 meters away.

The light beam shot out.

Under the high-speed camera, one could see the light beam actually taking an extremely complex "zigzag" path in the air.

Every time it encountered a mass of hot airflow, it automatically deflected at an angle, bypassing the area where the distortion was most severe.

0.8 seconds later, a red dot appeared in the center of the small target.

"Hit!" Wang Hao whistled.

Chen Guang stared at the data: "Energy loss is still too high."

"The detour strategy saved time, but there is scattering loss during the beam deflection process."

"Need to further optimize the path planning algorithm..."

"I say Guangzi," Wang Hao couldn't help but interrupt.

"All these sets of yours, listening makes my head hurt. If you ask me, can we make it simpler?"

"How simpler?" Chen Guang looked at him.

Wang Hao walked to the console and pulled up a sketch he drew last night.

That thing was less of a design drawing and more of a primary school student's doodle.

"Look, your laser is 'single-point continuous damage', just like taking a red-hot iron wire and slowly burning." Wang Hao gestured.

"And if the opponent moves around, you can't hit it accurately, right?"

"So?"

"So we can add an 'area damage' auxiliary layer!" Wang Hao said excitedly.

"Outside the main laser system, add a set of low-power pulsed laser nets."

"Don't need to burn through, just need to burn the sensors and optical windows on the missile surface!"

He pointed to the "missile" on the sketch: "Think about it, the missile needs sensors to see the road to change trajectory, right?"

"Needs optical windows to aim, right?"

"I'll blind your eyes, no matter how much you jump, you're still a headless fly!"

Chen Guang was stunned.

Li Yang reacted first: "Makes sense."

"Laser blinding requires two orders of magnitude less energy than laser burning through, and the irradiation time is much shorter."

Zhao Kaiyuan also nodded: "If it's just to interfere with sensors, a single pulse might be enough in 0.1 seconds. A set of systems can quickly sweep multiple targets."

"And!" Wang Hao became more excited as he spoke.

"This thing can be made modular, mounted on laser air defense vehicles, moved wherever needed."

"Main laser is responsible for gnawing hard bones, pulse net is responsible for clearing small soldiers, perfect cooperation!"

Chen Guang pushed up his glasses, his fingers already tapping on the virtual keyboard.

He was building a new simulation model.

Five minutes later, the preliminary results came out.

"Theoretically feasible." Chen Guang said.

"But the wavelength of the pulsed laser must be chosen correctly, to be able to penetrate the protective coating on the missile surface, and avoid being absorbed too much by the atmosphere."

"And scanning mode, emission frequency, coordination timing with the main system..."

"Details can be polished slowly!" Wang Hao patted his shoulder.

"I'm just responsible for coming up with ideas, the specific implementation still depends on you, Guangzi god!"

Zhao Gong laughed from the side: "Although this kid is noisy, he can occasionally come up with something useful."

Li Kui also nodded: "Pulsed blinding system, technically much simpler than megawatt-level lasers, can be quickly iterated and test-produced. If a prototype can be made before the next test..."

"Then do it." Feng Yan's voice came from behind.

Don't know when, he had already stood by the test field and watched for a while.

"Guangzi, continue to optimize the turbulence compensation of the main system, this is the foundation." Feng Yan walked over.

"Haozi's idea, can be set up as a pre-research project, you lead it, Haozi cooperates. Need any resources, just ask."

"Great!" Wang Hao rubbed his hands, "I'm finally going to have my own 'water gun' troops!"

Feng Yan smiled and turned to Chen Guang: "How is the progress of the actual combat deployment in Zhoushan?"

"Six main laser emitters are all in position, currently doing system joint debugging." Chen Guang pulled up the engineering progress table.

"Expected to be able to conduct full system tests in three days. Haozi"

"In addition, according to instructions, we have added mobile radar stations on three coastal islands and networked with 'Torch Dragon Eye'."

"Are the simulated missiles for testing ready?"

"Prepared two kinds." Chen Guang said.

"One is the retired rocket modified by Wang Hao, added a simple trajectory change device, can simulate conventional targets below Mach 15. The other..."

He paused: "Is the 'super-high-speed target drone' modified by Li Yang using the vector thruster of the 'Iron Wolf' exoskeleton, theoretically can fly to Mach 18, and can perform simple maneuvers."

"But the quantity is not large, only three."

Wang Hao immediately took over: "So we must use rocket missiles! Large quantity and enough to eat! Although I feel sorry for the money, but what should be spent must be spent..."

"Is the test plan decided?" Feng Yan asked.

"Tomorrow morning, Zhoushan sea area, live-fire interception test." Chen Guang said.

"Plan to launch twelve rocket missiles, six of which will perform preset trajectory changes. 'Torch Dragon Eye' needs to intercept at least ten to be considered passing the acceptance."

"The pressure is not small." Li Yang said.

"But only in this way can we verify the system's continuous combat capability under saturation attacks."

Zhao Kaiyuan added: "In terms of energy, we have coordinated with the local power grid, and the power supply for the laser array will be prioritized during the test."

"But as I said yesterday, this is just a temporary solution. In the long run..."

"In the long run, we need our own mobile energy." Feng Yan understood what he meant.

"How is the progress of the 'Xuanming' project?"

"Theoretical design is complete, currently processing the core components of the first prototype." Zhao Kaiyuan said.

"If everything goes well, preliminary results can be seen within two months."

"Speed up the progress." Feng Yan said, "Energy is always the lifeline of modern warfare."

Just then, the tablet on Chen Guang's arm vibrated.

He glanced at it, his brows furrowing slightly.

"What's wrong?" Feng Yan noticed his expression.

"Report just transmitted back from Zhoushan radar station." Chen Guang pulled up a report.

"In the past 24 hours, there have been multiple abnormal underwater sonar signals in the Footbasin Chicken sea area. Characteristic analysis shows... not conventional submarines."

"Be specific."

"Signal source depth is between 800 and 1,200 meters, moving speed is very slow, but the trajectory is extremely regular, like performing grid mapping." Chen Guang magnified a heat map.

"And, the area where these signals appeared is just... about 80 nautical miles southeast of the sea area where we plan to test."

The test field was silent for a few seconds.

Wang Hao spoke first: "These bastards, don't tell me they want to make trouble while we are testing?"

"Not necessarily." Li Yang analyzed.

"More likely, they are collecting underwater acoustic data while we are testing."

"The infrasound waves when rocket missiles enter the water, when the laser system is running, even the acoustic signature of our support ships... are all intelligence."

"Adjust the test plan?" Chen Guang asked.

Feng Yan thought for a moment and shook his head: "Proceed according to the original plan. But notify the Navy and ask them to strengthen underwater monitoring in the test sea area. Also..."

He looked at Chen Guang: "During the test, reserve thirty percent of the 'Torch Dragon Eye's' computing power to continuously monitor the surface and underwater electromagnetic activity in that sea area."

"If you discover anything abnormal, record it, but do not interrupt the test."

"Understood."

"And one more thing," Feng Yan added.

"Take a few of our 'Messenger' mechanical eels with you. After the test ends, let them 'wander' in the relevant sea area for a while to collect some environmental data."

Wang Hao's eyes lit up: "Brother Feng, are you planning counter-reconnaissance?"

"It's just collecting marine scientific data from public waters," Feng Yan said calmly. "It's completely legal and compliant."

Everyone laughed.

The test continued.

Sunlight spilled over the test site, and the buzzing of various equipment, discussions, and occasional bursts of laughter intertwined.