Ocean Figures | Academician Yang Desen: "Following the Sound" in the Deep Sea for Forty Years

(Photo source: Ocean Archives WeChat Official Account)

In 1977, he was admitted to the first underwater acoustics major established in New China.

From college to work till now, he has spent 45 years at Harbin Engineering University.

He always said: "Only when a personal career is closely integrated with the needs of the country can it have vitality and resonate with the development of the country."

"If you choose this industry, you are giving yourself to the country!"

In his eyes, moving towards the deep sea is an inevitable direction as marine technology continues to optimize and upgrade.

He has a dream - there will definitely be a deep-sea home in the future, and the "deep-sea business trip crew" will also become a reality.

Yang Desen, male, Han nationality, was born in April 1957 in Muling County, Heilongjiang Province. He started working in July 1975 and joined the Communist Party of China in January 1982. He is a doctor of engineering, professor, and doctoral supervisor.

In 1977, he was admitted to the Department of Hydroacoustic Engineering of Harbin Shipbuilding Engineering College for undergraduate studies. He graduated in January 1982 and stayed on to teach at the university. In July 2002, he became the vice president of Harbin Engineering University. From May 2003 to April 2015, he served as the vice president and dean of the Graduate School of Harbin Engineering University. In December 2015, he was elected as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

Yang Desen has been engaged in scientific research and talent training in the field of underwater acoustic engineering for a long time. He has a decent style of study, is brave in hard work and pioneering, and constantly explores new technologies. He has achieved many major pioneering research results in the areas of vector sonar technology and submarine acoustic stealth technology, especially submarine radiation noise measurement and noise source identification, which are urgently needed for national defense. He has won 18 national and provincial science and technology progress awards, the highest science and technology award of Heilongjiang Province in 2019, and 5 second prizes for national and provincial teaching achievements. He has trained more than 70 doctoral and master's students. The team he led was awarded the title of Excellent Innovation Team of the Ministry of Education, and the students he guided were nominated for the National 100 Excellent Doctoral Dissertations. In the past five years, he has published nearly 170 papers, including more than 30 SCI-searched papers and more than 50 EI-searched papers. He has authorized more than 40 invention patents and software copyrights, and published 2 academic monographs. He is a young and middle-aged expert with outstanding contributions to the country and enjoys the special allowance of the State Council. He has won many honorary titles at the national and provincial levels. He is a party representative at the 19th and 20th National Congresses of the Communist Party of China.

He currently serves as the convener of the Ship and Ocean Engineering Discipline Evaluation Group of the State Council Academic Degrees Committee, deputy leader of the expert group of the national major science and technology project "Deep Sea Space Station", deputy director of the Naval Warfare Committee of the Central Military Commission Science and Technology Commission, director of the Academic Committee of the National Defense Science and Technology Key Laboratory of Sonar Technology, vice president of the Chinese Acoustical Society, deputy director of the Acoustics Committee of the State Council Science and Technology Terminology Approval Committee, member of the PLA Underwater Target Characteristics and Transmission Technology Group, director of the Academic Committee of the National Defense Science and Technology Key Laboratory of Underwater Acoustic Technology, member of the PLA Submarine Vibration and Noise Reduction Technology Professional Group, vice chairman of the Heilongjiang Provincial Science and Technology Association, and director of the Academic Committee of the National Defense Science and Technology Key Laboratory of Sonar Technology.

Interview with Professor Yang Desen

(Source: China Youth Daily)

On the wall of Yang Desen's office, a delegate to the 20th CPC National Congress, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and a professor at Harbin Engineering University, there is a special map. At the beginning of each new semester, Yang Desen always likes to use this map to start his first lesson: "The map of China is like a blazing torch, and the tray and handle of the torch are the map of China's oceans..."

The ocean is the field of Yang Desen's work. In an exclusive interview with the China Youth Daily and China Youth Network reporter, he said that as my country accelerates the implementation of the strategy of building a strong maritime nation, from the "Jiaolong", "Deep Sea Warrior" to the "Struggler", one by one, the country's heavy equipment continues to break through the limits of the deep blue, allowing more and more people to understand the ocean, and more and more young people choose to devote themselves to the ocean cause.

(Photo source: Ocean Archives WeChat Official Account)

Yang Desen "accidentally plunged into the sea" since his youth, and has been dedicated to creating underwater "clairvoyance" and "clairaudience" for the motherland's vast sea borders.

This year's government work report pointed out that some key core technologies have made new breakthroughs, including deep-sea and deep-earth exploration. Yang Desen said that just like exploring the vast universe, the vast sea areas must also be accelerated, and the "deep-sea business trip crew" may become a reality in the near future.

A groundbreaking technology

Due to the special physical properties of the ocean, only sound can transmit information under the deep sea. If humans want to realize the dream of "catching turtles in the five oceans", hydroacoustics and sonar devices that apply hydroacoustics are indispensable, which is also the core content of Yang Desen's research for more than 40 years. He led the team to continuously explore and cultivate in the field of underwater acoustics, and finally made China one of the few countries in the world that mastered vector sonar technology.

In the 1990s, Yang Desen keenly proposed the forward-looking vector detection technology. However, the theoretical exploration of new technologies has never been smooth sailing.

Yang Desen admitted that the team had gone through a long period of repeated experiments and designed a new sensor very early. However, it was not until 1997 that the team broke through the key technology and successfully developed China's first vector sonar.

Yang Desen presided over the test and debugging of a certain type of submarine sonar holographic equipment at a certain military port

(Photo source: Ocean Archives WeChat Official Account)

When the first signal of vector sonar appeared in the temporary board room at Qingdao Wharf, the team was excited. The day they finished work and returned to Harbin was exactly the Lunar New Year's Eve. This day became a milestone for China's underwater acoustics to move from scalar to vector.

"Everyone says that innovation is good, but it is inevitable to face a lot of doubts in the process of innovation." Yang Desen still remembers that at a specially convened vector sonar seminar, after he finished his report, he was greeted with doubts from many "big names" in the industry.

An expert asked, "I don't see the problem with your experiment, but I just don't understand how it works?" The repeated questioning and denials and the layers of pressure were so great that he even "felt like he couldn't hold on any longer."

In fact, he spent 16 years exploring how to answer this question.

With his persistence in "sticking to his principles" and his perseverance and tenacity of "not turning back until he hits a wall", Yang Desen finally "waited for the clouds to clear and the moon to appear". He completed theoretical explanations and demonstrations from the aspects of mathematical principles, signal processing and physical principles, and clarified the scientific principles behind this groundbreaking technology.

Later, he learned that during that "attack" 16 years ago, his teacher, Yang Shi'e, one of the founders of China's hydroacoustic engineering discipline and academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, had silently supported him. The teacher wrote down more than 100 questions raised by experts in a small notebook in his pocket, but seeing that he was under too much pressure, he did not take it out.

Yang Shi'e encouraged him: "As an innovative technology, it is already very good that you can explain this problem clearly in 16 years."

"The final victory often lies in the effort of persisting a little longer. We must be determined in our direction and stick to it to the end." Yang Desen said with a smile, "I will let my own results speak for themselves. To do scientific research, you must be able to sit on the bench. My bench has been worn out."

Recently, Yang Desen and his team have made new breakthroughs in scientific research.

Passing the baton of building a strong maritime nation to young people

Yang Desen has been on the campus of Harbin Engineering University for 45 years, from college to work. When facing batches of young students, he always says: "Only when a personal career is closely integrated with the needs of the country can it have vitality and resonate with the development of the country."

After China resumed the college entrance examination in 1977, Yang Desen applied for hydroacoustics as soon as possible. He was one of the few students in the class who took the initiative to apply for hydroacoustics, although he didn't know what hydroacoustics was at that time. After he enrolled, he learned that he had been admitted to the first hydroacoustics major established in New China.

University graduation photo (Yang Desen is the twelfth person from the left in the third row)

(Photo source: Ocean Archives WeChat Official Account)

After graduation, he stayed in school to continue his research and teaching. He was assigned to a well-known research institute in the United States for a short period of study. There was a well-known experimental ship in the industry, which was docked at the dock of the workplace, and there were usually people on duty around it.

Yang Desen had always wanted to go on board and had tentatively asked if he could go on board, but the reply he got was "I need to write an application report, but it may not be approved." At that time, he felt that "here I can only stand outside the railing forever."

At that time, many people chose to stay abroad after going abroad, but Yang Desen was unwilling to "follow the trend". He told reporters that when conducting experimental research abroad, he was only allowed to do marginal work, "but I didn't want to waste my intelligence on this."

So, he returned to China without hesitation and led a group of team members to complete many groundbreaking research results.

Yang Desen playing the violin

(Photo source: Ocean Archives WeChat Official Account)

Every time a new technology is proposed, many new problems will arise during its use. "You have to solve problems that keep coming up and keep checking for gaps," said Yang Desen. "Occasionally, the new equipment stopped working in a certain situation, and we couldn't understand why this happened all of a sudden."

Later, after a lot of research, they finally found the reason and discovered a new physical phenomenon in the field of sonar. This time, it took them nearly 5 years.

In Yang Desen's view, in the process of continuous optimization and upgrading of marine technology, going to the deep sea is an inevitable direction. If humans want to develop marine resources, they must solve the problem of underwater information and have a platform to go to the deep sea so that scientific researchers can stay in the deep sea for a long time and conduct resource development and seabed research underwater.

"We now have national treasures such as the Jiaolong, but they are still experimental products. It will be more meaningful to turn experimental products into equipment platforms that meet greater goals."

Academician Yang Desen (back row, center) instructs students

(Photo source: Ocean Archives WeChat Official Account)

In Yang Desen's vision, such a platform "is like a mobile city, turning underwater observations at various depths into daily scientific research work. " "Just like the development of China's manned space program, we have our own space home in space, and in the future we will definitely have a deep-sea home, and the 'deep-sea business trip crew' will also become a reality."

Yang Desen told reporters: "The older generation of hydroacoustics people, represented by my teachers, came to Harbin, the Ice City, to build the hydroacoustic engineering discipline at the call of the country. Their words and deeds have had a great influence on me, and it still affects me today."

He took over the baton from the older generation of Shuisheng people and now he has become the "oldest member of the team", and the baton has been passed to the younger generation. "Now the team not only has the main force of the 70s and 80s, but also the younger ones of the 90s and 00s. I have confidence in them."

Yang Desen is a student at the School of Hydroacoustic Engineering of Harbin Engineering University

Teaching the "First Lesson of the School Year"

(Photo source: Ocean Archives WeChat Official Account)

In the first class of the new semester this year, he said to his students: "By choosing this industry, you are giving yourself to the country." What makes him happy is that nowadays more and more young students choose to study hydroacoustics.

"When I studied hydroacoustics more than 40 years ago, there were only two classes. Now we have 12 classes in the first grade, and the graduates are still in short supply. This shows that our country's marine industry has made great progress."

Yang Desen said with emotion: "The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China pointed out that we should 'comprehensively improve the quality of independent talent training', especially for the underwater acoustics major. The training of underwater acoustics talents can only rely on ourselves." He encouraged young students to not only develop solid skills, but also keep the interests of the country in mind, "to be a good person, do good things, study hard, and serve the ships, the sea, and the national defense."

Information sources:

1. Meng Peipei. Academician Yang Desen: "Following the Sound" in the Deep Sea for Forty Years[N]. China Youth Daily, 2023-03-28 (1).

2. Harbin Engineering University

3. Chinese Academy of Engineering Hall

Edited by: Li Weishan Reviewed by: Cai You