China releases new weapons design software that outperforms US rivals by x15

As we continue to see electromagnetic warfare being used to tip the balance of war, new weapon design software that reportedly outperforms similar US product in speed and memory, and which follows on from China using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to design their new hypersonic weapons, has been released by a group of Chinese scientists for free, according to a report.

Deemed the world’s most powerful electronic warfare weapon design software, the system is the culmination of multiple years of work. Named Yaoguang by Chinese researchers, the software is developed by Professor Li Bin and his team from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China.

Yaoguang takes just 12 minutes to perform radiation simulation analysis on the multi-band antenna used in the new phased array radar while Ansys HFSS, a powerful electromagnetic industrial software in the United States, takes three hours to complete such tasks. Yaoguang also consumes less than one-sixth of the memory resources when compared to the US software.

Reports have revealed that Ansys HFSS software is the industry standard for simulating 3D full-wave electromagnetic fields. Its gold-standard accuracy, advanced solver and high-performance compute technology have made it an essential tool for engineers doing accurate and rapid design of high-frequency and high-speed electronic components. Each HFSS solver incorporates a powerful, automated solution process, so you need only to specify geometry, material properties and the desired output.

However, the emergence of Yaoguang means that when Chinese scientists compete with American or international counterparts in developing a new generation of electronic warfare weapons that may determine the course of future wars, they can complete the theoretical verification of a design 15 times faster, while consuming the same computing resources, reported SCMP.

Li and his team published a paper in November revealing details about the software, which has numerous military applications. They revealed that Yaoguang has the capability to analyze the electromagnetic scattering characteristics of a large electromagnetic catapult aircraft carrier.

In such tasks, the latest software can increase the level of detail presented by nearly half, while taking one-third less time than the US software, according to reports. Yaoguang has been available for free for the past few months, which can increase its use in China and other parts of the world as well.

Researchers maintained that instead of paying hundreds of thousands of dollars annually for such products, it’s better to opt for Yaoguang, that’s faster, free, and can beat its rivals on multiple things. They also backed Yaoguang for numerous uses in China. They claim that the Chinese might loose access to similar Western products thanks to new sanctions coming in and which are expensive. So, choosing Yaoguang could benefit Chinese enterprises.

“As one of the seven most urgent and critical core technologies, industrial software has attracted great attention from the country,” wrote Li’s team in a peer-reviewed paper published in the Journal of the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China. With the support of this project, Yaoguang is rapidly developing and replacing Western products that are widely used in China’s industrial design field, according to SCMP.