ryethenovel Chapter 53 Mid-Term
Chapter 53 Mid-Term
On April 12th, the mid-term technical review meeting for the second phase of the Sky Dome project was held.
The location was still the 30th floor of Blue Bay Communications headquarters, in the same main conference hall. But this time, instead of the forty-odd people at the launch meeting, there were only twelve people: seven members of the Sky Dome Business Unit's Technical Committee, two people each from 402 and Dingxin Information, and Zhou Henian.
Zuo Cheng and Fang Ze represented Class 402. Dingxin was represented by Wang Jianping and his technical director.
The meeting was chaired by Lu Mingyuan. The schedule was very tight—each partner had twenty minutes to present and ten minutes for questions.
Dingxin Information spoke first. Wang Jianping, the technical director, reported on the progress of the two subsystems: terminal collaboration and operation and maintenance monitoring. The report was unremarkable, with no highlights or major flaws. The technical committee gave it a "meets expectations" rating. Wang Jianping sat quietly to the side, occasionally jotting down notes in his notebook—he wasn't concerned with his own company's report, but rather waiting to see how 402 would perform.
Then it's 402.
Zuo Cheng stood in front of the projection screen, and without any formalities, immediately turned to the first page.
"The four core modules, as of April 10th, are as follows: Multi-Star Pipeline Scheduler 95%, Adaptive Parameter Sharing Engine 88%, Beam Coordination Controller 97%, and Spectrum Sensing Front-End 85%. The average completion rate is 91%. We expect to complete the architecture design and prototype verification by early May, two weeks ahead of schedule."
He noticed that Zhou Henian's gaze lingered on the figure of "85% of the spectrum sensing front-end." In the last mid-term inspection, this module was at 60%, a jump of 25 percentage points in two months.
"The spectrum sensing front-end is the module with the most significant progress this time," Zuo Cheng said proactively, without waiting for questions. "We've solved the real-time sensing challenge in high-dynamic spectrum environments. The core solution is an embedded optimization algorithm based on cyclic stationary feature detection—"
He explained the core ideas of the technical solution in five minutes: three-step optimization, a processing latency of 38 milliseconds, an accuracy rate of 91.3%, and a false alarm rate of 0.7%. All the data came from 120-channel simulation verification, not theoretical calculations. Each slide of the PPT included corresponding simulation screenshots and raw data tables—Zuo Cheng disliked using embellished charts; he believed that raw data was more convincing than any beautification.
After finishing his explanation, he paused and added, "The algorithm for this scheme is inspired by the research findings of Professor Li's group at Blue Star University of Science and Technology in the field of cyclic stationarity detection. We have implemented original embedded optimizations in the engineering implementation, and the algorithm theory and engineering implementation belong to two independent intellectual property rights systems."
This statement was specifically addressed to the technical committee—the ownership of intellectual property rights is clear, and there is no risk of academic disputes.
During the Q&A session, the first question came from a senior engineer on the technical committee.
"Your fixed-pointing scheme suffers an accuracy loss of 0.5 dB. Under what conditions was this figure measured? What was the worst-case scenario?"
"The simulation conditions are a full load of 120 satellites, 12 visible satellites on the terminal, and a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of -5 dB," Zuo Cheng replied. "In the worst-case scenario—with an SNR of -10 dB—the accuracy loss increases to 1.2 dB, and the accuracy drops to 86%. However, the probability of an SNR of -10 dB occurring in actual operation is less than 0.3%, which is considered an extreme edge scenario."
The engineer glanced at the data but didn't ask any further questions.
The second question comes from Zhou Henian.
His questioning style was the same as at the last launch meeting; he was the last one to ask, and his question hit the nail on the head.
"Zuo Cheng, your spectrum sensing solution currently relies on single-terminal local sensing. What would happen if multiple terminals collaborated in sensing—each terminal sharing its spectrum sensing results with surrounding terminals—how would the overall system's sensing capability change?"
The room fell silent.
This question is on a higher level than simple technical optimization. Zhou Henian is not asking "Is your solution good enough?", but rather "Does your solution have the potential to be expanded into network-level capabilities?"
Zuo Cheng thought for five seconds. During those five seconds, no one in the meeting room spoke; even the sound of turning pages stopped.
"If we implement collaborative sensing, the local sensing results of each terminal can serve as a sampling point for a distributed spectrum map. The sampling points from multiple terminals can be aggregated to construct a real-time spectrum situation map covering the entire region," he explained, reflecting on the situation. "The value of this map lies not only in the discovery and avoidance of spectrum resources, but also in the fact that it allows the ground terminal network to 'see' the entire electromagnetic environment. This is significant for interference source localization, dynamic allocation of spectrum resources, and even electromagnetic countermeasures."
After he finished speaking, he realized that his last few words—"electromagnetic countermeasures"—had gone beyond the scope of Tianqiong civilian communications.
Zhou Henian looked at him, his eyes holding a deeper meaning than during the last launch meeting.
"Very good," Zhou Henian said. "I suggest that the Technical Committee include 'distributed collaborative spectrum sensing' in the preliminary research topics of the second phase of the Sky Dome project. The preliminary research plan should be drafted under the leadership of the 402nd Division."
Lu Mingyuan nodded and took notes.
After the review meeting, Zuo Cheng and Fang Ze walked out of the meeting room. Fang Ze, unusually, spoke up, saying, "Zhou Henian's last question didn't seem like something he came up with on the spur of the moment."
"No," Zuo Cheng said. "He's testing the technological limits of 402."
"Have you tested the waters?"
Zuo Cheng did not answer. He glanced at the floor-to-ceiling window at the end of the corridor. Outside, the April sky was high with clouds and bright sunlight.
Fang Ze didn't press the matter further. He adjusted his glasses and followed Zuo Cheng toward the elevator.
Wang Jianping was also in the elevator. He glanced at Zuo Cheng and said, "Your spectrum sensing solution is indeed brilliant."
"Dingxin's terminal collaboration module is also progressing steadily," Zuo Cheng replied.
Wang Jianping smiled. The two didn't say anything more. The elevator reached the first floor, and they each went to their respective cars.
After returning to the company, Zuo Cheng did two things.
The first thing was adding a new line to the Sky Dome mission area on the whiteboard: "Preliminary Research: Distributed Collaborative Spectrum Sensing." This wasn't a contractual delivery task; there was no additional funding, and no clear delivery deadline. But Zuo Cheng knew that the strategic value of this line far outweighed its investment—if successful, 402's role in the Sky Dome system would be more than just a module supplier; it would be a core partner with system-level innovation capabilities.
The second thing was sending a message to Yu Ying.
"Kongkong, the mid-term review has been passed. The spectrum sensing solution received high praise. Zhou Henian also asked us to lead the preliminary research on distributed collaborative sensing."
Yu Ying replied quickly: "Congratulations, brother."
"There's one more thing—I specifically mentioned during the review meeting that the algorithm's inspiration came from Professor Li's research group's findings, and the intellectual property rights are clearly defined. Please tell Professor Li that we acknowledge and respect original academic contributions."
"Okay," Yu Ying typed, then added, "Brother, you're always someone I can trust to get things done."
Zuo Cheng smiled slightly as he read the message.
rest assured.
This was probably the simplest yet most weighty evaluation he had ever heard.