China may be developing carrier-borne FC-31 fighter

摘要

Requests for proposals (RFPs) and tenders issued by the Shenyang Aircraft Design Institute on a range of equipment suitable for a stealth aircraft have heightened anticipation that a variant of the Shenyang Aircraft Corporation's (SAC's) FC-31 combat aircraft is to be developed as China's next-generation carrier-borne aircraft.An invitation to tender was issued on 27 December for an electro-optical targeting system featuring stealth characteristics that is capable of target detection, localisation, and tracking. The document states that the system should provide long-rang laser ranging of land or maritime targets as well as laser guidance.Another invitation to tender, which was also issued on 27 December, relates to target identification equipment. The tender calls for a system with a deep-learning target recognition function that can adopt neural network techniques and is capable of operating with a video stream at a rate of at least 30frames per second. The system should be capable of handling contacts of varying types and size and be compatible with the position and tracking function of the target detection system.