dognovel Chapter 27 Sky Dome Activation
Chapter 27 Sky Dome Activation
On the fifth day of the first lunar month, Zuo Cheng stood at the entrance of the Lanwan Communication R&D Center.
At eight o'clock in the morning, the office buildings in the high-tech zone were not yet fully awake, and there were few pedestrians on the road, with only a few people like him returning to work early. The lobby of the R&D center was heated, and the girl at the front desk handed him a brand-new employee badge—not the previous temporary badge, but a formal intern badge, with his name, department, and access level all printed on it.
The department section reads: Sky Dome Project Team.
Zuo Cheng hung his employee badge around his neck and swiped his card to enter the elevator.
Twenty-three floors. Safety door. Red indicator light.
The process was the same as last time, but this time the scene behind the door was different—an open-plan workspace had been added next to the conference room, with five or six desks pushed together, each already set up with computers and technical documents. A Gantt chart for the project was displayed on a whiteboard against the wall, with a timeline from January to June, densely packed with milestones.
Han Zhe was waiting for him at the entrance of the work area.
"You're the first intern to arrive on the project team." He handed Zuo Cheng a USB drive and a paper document. "The USB drive contains measured channel data and satellite orbit parameters for the satellite-to-ground link. The paper document is the technical specifications for the first phase of the Sky Dome project. Take a look, and feel free to contact me if you have any questions."
Are there other interns in the project team?
"Three. Two are doctoral students from Huaxia University of Technology, and one is a master's student from Blue Star University of Science and Technology. They are all top students in the field of communications at their respective universities, personally selected by President Zhou." Han Zhe glanced at him. "You are the only undergraduate."
Zuo Cheng nodded, said nothing more, walked to the workstation by the window, sat down, plugged in the USB drive, and began to look at the data.
The technical specifications are more detailed than what Zhou Henian described last time—the Tianqiong constellation orbits at an altitude of 550 kilometers and an inclination of 53 degrees, distributed across 24 orbital planes, with 50 satellites in each plane. Each satellite covers an area with a radius of approximately 1100 kilometers, and the frequency band, power, and bandwidth of the communication link with ground terminals are all subject to clearly defined parameter constraints.
The amount of measured data for the satellite-to-ground link channel is very large. Blue Bay Communications used ground simulation equipment and an experimental satellite already in orbit to collect data for three months, covering four weather conditions: sunny, cloudy, rainy, and snowy, as well as three ground environments: urban, suburban, and marine.
Zuo Cheng spent two hours reading through the technical specifications and another three hours scanning the structure and key parameters of the measured data.
The difficulty is indeed an order of magnitude greater than that of terrestrial 5G.
Ground base stations are fixed, and channel changes mainly arise from user movement and environmental variations. However, satellites fly overhead at 7.6 kilometers per second, with a single visible period of only five to eight minutes. Within these few minutes, the channel state undergoes its entire lifecycle, from establishment to stabilization and then to fading. Algorithms must not only accurately estimate the channel at each moment but also predict its changing trends in the coming seconds—because the round-trip delay of satellite communication signals is much greater than that of ground-based communication; by the time you estimate it, the channel may have already changed.
Prediction. This is the core requirement that satellite-to-ground links have over terrestrial links.
Zuocheng's adaptive tracking algorithm excels at "tracking the current state," but "predicting the future state" requires an additional mechanism.
He wrote two words in his notebook: Prediction. Then he drew a question mark.
On his way to the cafeteria for lunch, Zuo Cheng did something he had been thinking about for a long time.
Upon entering the R&D center building, he consciously activated the technology radar.
The scan results within a 30-meter range came in almost instantly.
The density of technical personnel in the R&D center was extremely high—the radar detected the technological capabilities of seven people just along the corridor he walked through. Most of them possessed various specialized technologies in the field of communications engineering, ranging from "proficient" to "master," with each level requiring between two and five points to replicate.
One of the goals stands out in particular.
[Target: Unknown Person C]
Mastering Technology: Satellite Communication Link Design (Master Level)
[Copying costs: 7 points]
Master level. Seven points.
Zuo Cheng subconsciously glanced in the direction indicated by the radar—at the corner at the end of the corridor, a man in his fifties walked by carrying a teacup. He had gray hair and a slightly overweight figure. His name tag on his chest swayed, and Zuo Cheng couldn't see the name clearly, but he could see the department—Sky Dome Project Team, Chief Engineer.
The chief engineer of Tianqiong. Master-level satellite communication link design capabilities.
He can afford to spend seven points. With a reserve of fifty-three points, he still has forty-six points left after deducting seven, which is well above the safety line.
But Zuo Cheng did not make a move.
He sat down in the cafeteria, holding a bowl of beef noodles, and while eating, he went over the pros and cons in his mind.
The benefits of replication are obvious—instantly gaining master-level satellite communication link design capabilities, the technical challenges in step four will be greatly reduced.
But the problems are also obvious.
First, the chief engineer is a core member of the Sky Dome project team. As an intern, Zuo Cheng will be working closely with this person for the next six weeks. If he replicates the chief engineer's knowledge system and exhibits a highly similar way of thinking and judgment in technical discussions, the chief engineer, with decades of experience, would not fail to notice the anomaly. This is different from previously replicating Yu Ying's basic tools—master-level knowledge has a strong personal style, as unique as a fingerprint.
Secondly, Zhou Henian has already become suspicious of him. The last "tiered downgrade design" incident was barely managed to be overlooked, but if another instance occurs where "an undergraduate student inexplicably masters the core competencies of a senior expert," Zhou Henian will definitely investigate further. Once this layer of trust is broken, the opportunity for the Sky Dome project may be completely lost.
Third, and most importantly, he didn't want to take that shortcut.
When this thought came to mind, Zuo Cheng himself was a little surprised. Fifty-three points, master-level skills, obtainable with a single click—rationally speaking, it was a worthwhile deal. But a voice in his mind said: Stage Four is the ticket to Sky Dome. If the ticket is obtained by copying other people's abilities, then his position in the Sky Dome project has been hollow from the beginning.
He wants to establish himself on his own merits.
The blades provided by the system, the algorithms he derived himself, and the engineering capabilities honed by his team—these are things that are truly ingrained in him, and no one can take them away. While copied knowledge can be used, it is ultimately just someone else's shadow.
Zuo Cheng finished slurping up the last mouthful of beef noodles and added a new principle to his mental guidelines for using the technology radar: Do not copy people you have worked with for a long time.
[The technology radar has entered its 48-hour cooling phase.]
At 2 p.m., the other three interns arrived one after another.
Two doctoral students from Huaxia University of Science and Technology, a man and a woman, were present. The man, Cheng Yuan, researched satellite signal processing; he wore gold-rimmed glasses and spoke slowly and deliberately. The woman, Lin Ke, worked on space channel modeling; she had short, neat hair and a straightforward personality. The master's student from Blue Star University of Science and Technology was Tang Xu, whose research focused on antenna array optimization. He was tall and had a kind smile, but Zuo Cheng judged from the look in his eyes when he looked at technical documents that this man was not simple.
The four interns sat around in the work area and politely introduced themselves to each other.
When Cheng Yuan heard that Zuo Cheng was an undergraduate, his eyes flickered behind his gold-rimmed glasses, but he said nothing. Lin Ke, however, was direct: "An undergraduate can get into the Sky Dome project team? Was he personally selected by President Zhou?"
"Hmm." Zuo Cheng didn't explain further.
Lin Ke looked at him for two seconds, seemingly wanting to say something, but ultimately just nodded: "He must be quite skilled."
Zhou Henian arrived at 3 p.m.
He stood in front of the whiteboard in the work area and spent three minutes drawing a diagram for the four interns—a schematic diagram of the signal coverage of the Celestial Constellation, with the key technical nodes of the satellite-to-ground link marked on it.
"The four of you will each be responsible for one direction." His voice wasn't loud, but every word carried weight. "Cheng Yuan, signal processing link design. Lin Ke, space channel modeling and parameter calibration. Tang Xu, ground terminal antenna design. Zuo Cheng—"
He looked towards Zuo Cheng.
"Algorithm for estimating and predicting satellite-to-ground link channels."
"You have six weeks. After six weeks, each of you will submit a complete technical proposal to participate in the first phase of the Sky Dome joint review. Those who pass will be able to directly join the Sky Dome core team after graduation. Those who don't pass—"
Zhou Henian didn't finish his sentence, but everyone understood what he meant.
Zuo Cheng looked at the line of words next to his name on the whiteboard—"Channel Estimation and Prediction".
It is estimated that he has already reached the top ranks on Earth.
Prediction is a completely new battlefield.
Six weeks. Forty-two days.
He opened his notebook, drew a line under the question mark below the word "prediction," and changed it to a period.
It's not a problem. It's a task.