A Titan of Radio Engineering : The Centennial of the Birth of Academician A.A Raspletin

ISSN 1019
3316, Herald of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 2009, Vol. 79, No. 5, pp. 495–500. © Pleiades Publishing, Ltd., 2009.Original Russian Text © I.R. Ashurbeili, A.P. Reutov, E.M. Sukharev, 2009, published in Vestnik Rossiiskoi Akademii Nauk, 2009, Vol. 79, No. 10, pp. 937–943. Profiles DOI: 10.1134/S101933160905013X A Titan of Radio Engineering The Centennial of the Birth of Academician A.A. Raspletin tric laboratory to develop piezoelectric crystals as part of shortwave transmitters. He also set Raspletin the more challenging task of designing a piezoelectric fre
quency standard. In 1932, the first technical paper by Raspletin appeared in the journal Tekhnika radio i slabogo toka (Radio and Low
Current Technology), which presented his results concerning piezoelectric
crystal fabrication and adjustment and circuit design for accurate time measurement [3]. Once in Leningrad, he began his studies to enter the radio
engineering profession. After graduating from the Leningrad Low
Current Technology College in 1932, he enrolled as a radio
engineering student in the evening department of the Leningrad Electrotech
nical Institute. During his time at the institute, he published five more papers and obtained two inven
tor’s certificates. Despite his great workload, he also joined a shortwave military unit as a consultant. He took part in building the first shortwave radio stations for the exploration of the Northern Sea Route. Academician Aleksandr Andreevich Raspletin (1908– 1967). The centennial of the birth of Aleksandr Andreevich Raspletin, a prominent Soviet researcher and designer, has been commemorated recently. An adventurous engineer and brilliant administrator, he took a leading part in many R&D efforts to the benefit of the national economy, defense, and science. Raspletin was born on August 25, 1908, into a mer
chant’s family in Rybinsk near Yaroslavl [1]. As a schoolboy, he had an interest it chemistry and physics and played in his school’s brass band before he became fascinated by radio. He built a transceiver and began experimenting with establishing long
range commu
nications as a member of the local ham
radio society [2]. His dedication earned him the respect of his fellow members; they elected him chair of the shortwave sec
tion in 1928 and selected him to represent the society at the First All
Union Conference of Ham Radio Operators in Moscow December 24–28, 1928. In 1930, Raspletin moved to Leningrad and took a job at the Comintern factory. The factory’s chief researcher A.L. Mints assigned him to the piezoelec
The year 1932 was a turning point in Raspletin’s career during which he became engaged in the devel
opment of television. The piezoelectric laboratory was reorganized into part of the Central Radio Laboratory, in which a laboratory of television and electrooptics was set up under the leadership of V.A. Gurov, the author of The Fundamentals of Long
Range Viewing (Osnovy dal’novideniya). Raspletin’s first investigation involved running comparative tests of receivers used in mechanical television, for which purpose he organized the fabrication of a batch of TV sets based on a mirror screw and lens disk in December 1932. The results were published in 1933 as a series of papers [4]. His work on electronic television began with devel
oping the first all
electronic television receiver, aiming to offer a resolution of 30–120 lines. In 1934 a team led by Ya.A. Ryftin created a technology that provided 180 lines of resolution at 25 frames per second. In Sep
tember 1938, Raspletin came up with the first Soviet TV set, named VRK, which was designed to receive broadcasts from a newly built pilot TV center in Len
ingrad. During 1938–1940, pioneering efforts were made to design a large
screen TV set for collective viewing; the result was the TE
1 and TE
2 projection TV sets with a screen measuring 1.0 × 1.2 or 2 × 3 m, 495 496 ASHURBEILI et al. ing worldwide as early as September, via relay stations in Moscow. His more ambitious idea was to design and make portable transceivers for use on the battlefield, which was approved in July 1941. The Sever (North) radio set (also known as Omega) was thus created and began to be manufactured by the Television Research Institute, with Raspletin responsible for quality control and compliance with the specifications (there were no mil
itary representatives at the institute). In February 1942, however, Leningrad was cut off from electricity supply, and the production of radio sets ceased. Under the circumstances, the decision was made to evacuate the staff of the institute to Krasnoyarsk. The siege of Leningrad took a heavy toll on Rasple
tin: he lost his mother and wife and many coworkers. Raspletin’s 17TN
1 television (Polytechnical Museum, Moscow). respectively, based on the US model TK
1. As early as 1937, Raspletin’s team began developing the first tabletop personal TV sets, named TI
1 and TI
2, which were simpler variants of VRK and TK
1. In 1939, an improved model, TI
3, appeared for receiv
ing broadcasts from the TV centers in Moscow and Leningrad. It went into mass production at the Radist (Radio Operator) factory in Leningrad under the code name 17TN
1. It was the first Soviet tabletop radio and television receiver of tower configuration that implemented electronic scanning and direct detec
tion. Later, it served as the prototype of the KVN
49, probably the most popular Soviet TV set. With the increasingly tense situation in Europe, Raspletin took an interest in military applications of television. He and Ryftin initiated a project to develop a TV system for air reconnaissance. Unfortunately, it was abandoned after the Great Patriotic War broke out. In 1941 the German aggression against the Soviet Union made it impossible to continue any work on television. Raspletin and his coworkers spent over two weeks constructing the Luga Defense Line as part of the war effort. In August, all radio broadcasting sta
tions in Leningrad were rendered inoperable except for the medium
wave one (RV
70) in the Petrograd
skii district, but its transmitters were not powerful enough to reach Moscow. Its chief A.I. Mironov and Raspletin came up with a way to convert available ultrashortwave TV transmitters to shortwave radio transmitters, so that the radio station began broadcast
During the war, Raspletin became interested in military electronic technologies for early warning or guidance. In later years, he was concerned with auto
mated targeting systems, whether ground
based, air
borne, or spaceborne [5]. In fact, he advanced the concept of a TV facility to guide fighter aircraft as early as 1938. The idea found a number of successful implementations. In particular, it was developed by E.I. Golovanevskii into the con
cept of a TV system for transmitting data from the Redut (Redoubt) radar to the headquarters of the Len
ingrad Front. Golovanevskii’s proposal was put into operation to effectively become the first command
and
control system for air
defense electronic facili
ties. In September 1942, Raspletin was transferred to the Special Design Bureau at the Lenin All
Union Electrical Engineering Institute in Moscow, where he was appointed the research supervisor of a team charged with creating a TV system for guiding fighters; the effort was given the code name RD. In November 1943, Raspletin’s team was transferred to All
Union Research Institute No. 108, which was established on July 4 to develop radar technology. Intended for the Leningrad Air
Defense Army, the RD system was one of the main projects of the institute. It was presented for acceptance tests in late 1944, and passed them in the battlefield near Breslau (now Wroclaw) and Lenin
grad. In 1946, Raspletin worked on the design of a radar installation, code
named RT or SNAR
1, for front
line detection and accurate location of ground targets such as tanks, armored personnel carriers, and artil
lery positions. He came up with three inventions, the most nota
ble of which was a radio
engineering technique to pro
tect armored vehicles, devised in collaboration with the prominent physicist M.A. Leontovich, P.Z. Stas’ (director), and A.M. Kugushev (chief engineer). HERALD OF THE RUSSIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES Vol. 79 No. 5 2009 A TITAN OF RADIO ENGINEERING In 1947 he conducted pioneering research on mil
limeter
wave technology; these efforts were named Taiga and Les (Forest). Returning to Raspletin’s contributions to televi
sion, we note his conception of a mass
produced TV set, which was implemented by A.Ya. Klopov, D.S. Kheifets, and others, as a single
and a three
channel model (T
1 and T
2), and produced by the Kozitskii Factory in Leningrad. Raspletin was a brilliant proponent and a coauthor of almost all Soviet TV standards [6]. His efforts cul
minated in the adoption of a 625
line national stan
dard on December 31, 1955 [7]. Indeed, almost all of his conceptions in the field of television have proved viable. In 1950, Raspletin joined Design Bureau No. 1, code
named KB
1, to direct the Berkut (Golden Eagle) air
defense project. That year a meeting of the Defense Council chaired by J. Stalin concluded that Moscow was defenseless against possible air attacks of the potential enemy, particularly from the west, north
west, and north. To rectify this, the decision was made to build an air
defense system for the entire Moscow industrial region. Stalin stressed that the air defense must be perfectly impenetrable, considering the threat of atomic bombing. To the Soviet government, the Berkut project was as important as the creation of nuclear ballistic missiles [8]. Raspletin took responsibility for its radio
engi
neering side as a deputy to its chief designers P.N. Kuksenko and S.L. Beria, Jr. (son of L.P. Beria). In fact, he made decisions about the configuration of the entire system, as well as of its radar facilities. It was Raspletin who advanced the unprecedented concept of a multichannel radar station capable of tracking up to 20 targets concurrently within a fixed coverage sec
tor. The facility was named the B
200 Central Guid
ance Radar. In addition, Raspletin and A.P. Reutov proposed providing the Berkut system with an early
warning and missile
targeting capability in the form of Tu
4 aircraft equipped with a long
range radar and radio
homing air
to
air missiles for defense, the latter being previously designed by SB
1. The proposal was sup
ported by the leading airborne
radar designer V.V. Tikhomirov, and was approved by Kuksenko and Stalin in 1951. The aircraft was code
named D
500. The Berkut system began to be tested as early as 1952, with Raspletin as the resident technical supervi
sor at the test range. In November 1952, a simulation was successfully conducted of firing a V
300 surface
to
air missile (SAM) at a target under closed
loop guidance. The first target drone was shot down on April 26, 1953, and the first phase of test firings was finished the next month, the tests involving Tu
4 aircraft. HERALD OF THE RUSSIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 497 SNAR
1 radar station in transit. In the middle of 1953, Raspletin succeeded S.L. Beria, Jr., as chief designer, and the Berkut system was renamed the S
25. The final series of ground tests of a full
fledged pro
totype that guided missiles to 20 targets concurrently were conducted in 1954 and 1955. The same years saw the deployment of actual S
25 facilities near Moscow, which involved an enormous amount of construction work. On May 7, 1955, a meeting chaired by N.S. Khrushchev declared S
25 accepted. Raspletin was given the title of Hero of Socialist Labor and was presented with a ZIM luxury car. However, S
25 had the obvious disadvantage of being immobile, and as such could not be used to defend the cities and other critical assets of the coun
try. Continual violations of the Soviet airspace made the need for nationwide air defense more pressing. Considering the circumstances, Raspletin came for
ward with an initiative to design a mobile SAM system, which was given the code name S
75 [9]. The work on S
75 began when the S
25 project was still in progress. The acceptance tests of S
75 in a ten
tative frequency band were finished as early as 1957, and its final version entered service the next year. Ras
pletin was awarded the Lenin Prize in recognition of Central Guidance Radar of the S
25 system. Vol. 79 No. 5 2009 498 ASHURBEILI et al. (a) (b) U
2 Affair: (a) A U
2 spy aircraft in flight and (b) the government commission examining the wreckage of the U
2 downed on May 1, 1960. his leading part in the effort. In 1958 he was elected a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sci
ences, and was named to the Supreme Soviet of the National Economy (Vesenkha), chaired by V.M. Rya
bikov. In January 1961, Raspletin was appointed gen
eral designer of KB
1. S
75 became famous when a U
2 spy aircraft crossed the border and was shot down near Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg) on May Day in 1960. The same day, D.F. Ustinov called a meeting in the Kremlin to discuss the event. Raspletin, who had just talked with the air
defense commander
in
chief, pointed to the urgent need for an integrated automated system for command and control of all air
defense facilities. The project to implement his proposal was named Elektron (Electron). In the spring of 1958, Raspletin formulated the task of creating an air
defense system with an increased range of operation compared with S
75 and the next mobile SAM system, S
125 [10]. The rationale was the emergence of aircraft with a long
range jamming capability and air
to
surface missiles with a range exceeding 100 km; indeed, radars of increased cover
age were more suitable for a country with a vast terri
tory. The conceptual design of the long
range SAM system, code
named S
200, was finished in May 1959; the preliminary design was performed during Decem
ber 1959 and January 1960; and the ground tests started in 1966. The same year saw the beginning of work on its successor, S
300. Raspletin also directed missile
defense projects. In 1953, seven marshals wrote a letter to the Central Committee of the Communist Party, alerting it to the emerging threat from long
range ballistic missiles. It contained the following points: In the immediate future, we expect to see the potential enemy deploying long
range ballistic missiles as the main vehicle to deliver nuclear devices to the critical assets of our coun
try. However, our air
defense facilities, whether in ser
vice or in development, are incapable of combating the missiles. We are writing to request that branch ministries be ordered to launch projects with the aim of creating facilities to combat the ballistic missiles. On October 28, the Council of Ministers issued the order On the Fea
sibility of Creating Missile
Defense Facilities, followed by the December order On the Development of Tech
niques for Combating Long
Range Missiles. An appro
priate unit was set up in KB
1 in response to the request by senior military officials that leading experts of the design bureau took part in the missile
defense effort. During 1955 and 1956, the government made decisions to proceed with the feasibility study. KB
1 was selected as the leading designer of a local missile
defense system, named Azov, and Raspletin was put in charge of the project. In 1965, KB
1 pro
duced a preliminary design and proceeded to prepare technical documentation. Later, the design bureau was ordered to upgrade the system for use of intercon
tinental ballistic missiles for missile
defense purposes. The Azov system was conceived by Raspletin as an integral part of a wider effort that included the cre
ation of a missile
defense system for Moscow (A
35) and a space
based warning system designed to detect missile firings. In 1965, KB
1 was charged with con
ducting a feasibility study on such a warning system, following a request by the air
defense command. Its HERALD OF THE RUSSIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES Vol. 79 No. 5 2009 A TITAN OF RADIO ENGINEERING concept was framed by Research Institute No. 2 of the Ministry of Defense, with a significant contribution made by Raspletin. As regards air defense, Raspletin put forward the innovative idea of using laser radiation against low
fly
ing targets. It was supported by B.V. Bunkin, F.V. Bunkin, and E.P. Velikhov, who estimated the out
put laser energy required to shoot down an aircraft at 2 × 107 J (subject to air attenuation) against an avail
able input energy of 6 × 108 J. Raspletin assigned his deputy B.V. Bunkin to lead the laser project, who set up a targeted laboratory in February 1966, with E.M. Sukharev as its head. Velikhov was charged by the Academy’s Vice President M.D. Millionshchikov with related investigations into magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) generators. A pro
gram was formulated under Raspletin’s supervision that addressed the design of a system for the precision guidance of a laser beam. Later, it provided the basis for a lidar project. In the summer of 1966, Raspletin, Velikhov, B.V. Bunkin, F.V. Bunkin, and P.P. Pashinin met at the Lebedev Physical Institute to discuss the laser project and decided to prepare a note for the Central Com
mittee of the Communist Party. The document was ready by the autumn, entitled “Proposals for a Broadly Based Investigation into Resources and Methods for Building Systems around Optical Quantum Genera
tors.” The Central Committee and the Council of Ministers approved the initiative in their joint decree of February 23, 1967. Raspletin, A.M. Prokhorov, B.V. Bunkin, and Velikhov were appointed the chief researchers of the project. Regrettably, Raspletin died suddenly on March 8, 1967, after a brief illness in his 59th year. Any account of Raspletin’s career is seriously incomplete if it omits his academic work. It was before he graduated from the Leningrad Electrotechnical Institute that he began teaching a daytime course in TV
set design for fourth
year students. After he quali
fied as a radio engineer, he taught there for some time and then at a retraining college, while lecturing at the Leningrad Radio
Amateur Club. On March 7, 1947, he defended his dissertation “On the Design of a Sin
gle
Valve Sawtooth Oscillator” to obtain a candidate’s degree in engineering. In the middle of 1949, he began lecturing on automatic control and teleoperation at the Bauman Moscow Higher Technical School. After joining KB
1, he originated the idea of a resident radar department of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology on the premises of the design bureau, and this was established in 1954. In 1956 Raspletin was cumulatively awarded a doctoral degree. But the most important product of Raspletin’s aca
demic and mentoring activities was his school of researchers and engineers including B.V. Bunkin, HERALD OF THE RUSSIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 499 G.Ya. Gus’kov, V.I. Markov, P.M. Kirillov, A.E. Basis
tov, A.I. Savin, G.V. Kisun’ko, Yu.N. Figurovskii, K.S. Al’perovich, V.P. Shishov, V.M. Shabanov, E.M. Sukharev, V.G. Repin, V.M. Sidorin, and A.P. Reutov. He advised more than 40 graduate stu
dents. For many years, Raspletin served as a member of the expert council of the Higher Attestation Commis
sion and a member of the Special Committee at the Council of Ministers. He chaired the technical board at KB
1. In 1956, Raspletin was awarded a doctoral degree in recognition of his achievements in radio engineer
ing. In 1958 and 1964, he was elected a corresponding member and a full member, respectively, of the USSR Academy of Sciences in the field of radio and elec
tronic engineering. Raspletin belonged to a new generation of engi
neers. Those who knew him personally remember his clear
sightedness; extensive expertise in matters of sci
ence, engineering, and manufacturing; enthusiasm balanced with sound judgment; equal attention to the
oretical and practical aspects; resourcefulness; and amazing capacity for hard work. In his professional relationships, he strove for exacting standards while being approachable and cheerful. Intensely patriotic, he made invaluable contributions to the national sci
ence, technology, and defense [11]. Four decades after his death, we admire him even more. I.R. Ashurbeili, Cand. Sci. (Eng.), A.P. Reutov, RAS Corresponding Member, E.M. Sukharev, Dr. Sci. (Eng.) REFERENCES 1. V. I. Garnov, Academician Aleksandr Raspletin (Mosk
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Union Low
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and
White Television Standards,” Zh. “625, “No. 7 (2008). 7. “Standard 625: World Recognition,” Zh. “625,” (Spe
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