Military technology also improving everyday life, scientist says

China's military technologies are helping to improve the everyday lives of the people, a senior military scientist said on Tuesday.

Xue Chenyang, delegate to the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party and professor from North University of China, a school dedicated to military engineering, meets the press in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing October 24, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]

Some military technologies are closely related to the people's daily lives, said Xue Chenyang, a professor from North University of China, a school dedicated to military engineering.

For example, carbon fibers used in satellites are now being widely used in manufacturing and China's Beidou navigation system is also being used in bike sharing apps, he said on the sidelines of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.

Speaking from his personal experience, Xue once worked on a computer chip-sized electronic underwater sensor that can pick up sounds under the sea and be used in sea-floor observation.

He later expanded this technology to be able to detect very faint sounds from the human body. "Such technologies worked very well during testing, and can detect sounds that are too faint for traditional stethoscopes,"he said.

These sounds are then uploaded to a cloud network for analysis and could help produce a more accurate diagnosis. "This technology is already on its way to reaching the market,"he said.

"We hope other sensors and transmitters that are used in rockets and deep sea exploration can reach the civil market,"he said.

However, there are two major hurdles. The first is that these high tech gadgets were designed to serve a specific project, so engineers did not think about how they could benefit the lives of ordinary people during the design phase.

Secondly, scientists are not very good at marketing, so they are not very active in pushing their creations to market, he said.

"The report from the congress states that we have to blend military and civilian technologies, and find ways to integrate them,"he said. "I think those issues will be solved in the future."

"As a scientist, our creations not only have a duty to serve the military and national defense, but also help people live better lives,"he said.