Overseer for Imperial Scientific Development
- Intent: To create an advancement in cloaked ship detection
- Image Source:
- Canon Link: n/a
- Permissions:
- HPI technology under full permissions tag
- Permission for FUAE items under special permissions
- Primary Source: n/a
- Manufacturer: Rocksolid Arms
- Affiliation: Eternal Empire
- Market Status: Closed-Market
- Model: Muonic Doppler Array Mk 2
- Modularity: No
- Production: Semi-Unique
- Material:
- Alloyplast frame
- Theadian for transparent surfaces
- Dral Kayatr
- Electrical components
- Exotic particle Emission substrates
- Muon detection components
- Emits repeated exotic particle bursts. These interact during their passage to cause the release of muons within the target area. The detection arrays then detect changes in their half lives, caused by micro-dilations in time due to moving objects, the faster the object is moving, the more easily it can pick up these dilations.
- Bursts travel faster than the speed of light and are received by another array, which in turn can send its own bursts. The more arrays deployed, the faster and more accurately a hidden object can be detected.
- Divine Eyes sensor and electronics systems
- MEIPOC AI link and program code
- Dedicated HAPU | Hybrid Antimatter Power Unit
- Novel detection method: The new method can potentially thwart many existing cloaking devices, including those that usually supress a ship's emissions and gravitational field.
- Weakly interacting particles: The chose exotic particles interact with very little so can pass through most materials and energy shields with no effect on the particles or the obstruction and can only be detected by specifically dedicated scientific instruments
- Omni-directional: The bursts move out in all directions from the emitter and can detect an object in any direction, removing the need to know where the ship probably is before searching.
- Large coverage: A single emitter has a projected range of around 1200km, so a relatively large area of space can be covered by a small number of arrays. The need to overlap coverage from different arrays though does limit this, potentially leading to 'blind spots'
- Target speed dependent: Because the system relies on movement enduces micro-dilations in time, it cannot detect entirely stationary objects and becomes less reliable as the target's speed approaches zero.
- Multiple arrays needed: A single array might tell you if something is there, but in order to get a fix on the target position, at least three arrays must be deployed together and the greater number of arrays deployed the better the fix. This limits the number of places this technology can be used due to the small number of extremely precious arrays.
- Active system: This system has to operational and actively sending out bursts to he able to detect targets, this means it takes time to deploy and if the cloaked targets passes by before activation their will be no sign.
- Beacon: Although the particles emitted are invisible to most observers and detection methods, if you have a scanner capable of detecting them, then the arrays will glow like a lighthouse beacon every time a burst is sent, allowing them to be tracked. The appropriate scanners tend to only be present on dedicated science vessels.
- Experimental: This technology is based on principles that were until recently only theoretical so the technology is still considered experimental and should not be trusted as a perfect counter to cloaked vessels. The experiments so far though have been promising with an approximately 85% detection rate.
Based on previously ground based experiments for detecting time dilation, the new technology works by sending highly exotic particles out into space, these interact sub-atomically as they travel releasing unstable muons with a half life of around 2.1 microseconds. Any space experiencing time dilation can be detected as moving mouns have a higher half life to stationary ones (ref), this soup of information is analysed and used to detect hidden moving ships. The number of muons release is very low, not enough to cause the creation of muonic gold a product caused by subjecting oil to high intensity muon particles.
Muons are also released in a flash when ships enter hyperspace, however, due to the short half lives of the particles, these flashes only cause a very brief detection anomaly on the scanner, and the AI has been trained to account for them by having ships entering hyperspace during laboratory testing.
The array is a fairly large piece of technology with the detector being the largest part, a spherical chamber just over 10 metres in diameter, and it consumes a vast amount of power so is built with a dedicated HAPU system to allow it to be independent of the systems of the chosen deployment vehicle.
A single emitter will tell you an object is there but not exactly where, a second gives more information and a third allows accurate triangulation of the target by feeding all of this information into a power analytical AI system.
The array does not break the cloak or effect the target in any way, it only allows detection. Constellations of these arrays could theoretically be used to render large areas in orbit impassable to cloaked vessels. Unfortunately the limit number means they have to be deployed strategically, targeting high value individuals, suspected escape corridors or important blockades.
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