Rudolf Kühnhold

Rudolf Kühnhold ( born August 27, 1903 in Schwallungen, † 1992) was a German physicist.

Life

Kühnhold resigned after his physics studies, which he completed at the University of Göttingen with the promotion, at the Torpedo Experimental Station (TVA ) in the service of the Imperial Navy. There he quickly rose to the Navy Oberbaurat and took over in 1928 in Kiel head of the NVA, the research department of the news research department. In 1931, he already applied for a patent for underwater sound localization of objects, which is now called Sonar. In addition, he worked intensively on a project to expand the echo sounder. The point was that via " classic " unit will not only vertical, the depth should be measured to the ocean floor, but that the new echo sounder and horizontal measurement, that could make the distance to other vessels. It was about the development of a radar device.

In the summer of 1933 Kühnhold came in experiments the idea of ​​resorting instead of based on sound waves sonar echo-sounder principle for electromagnetic waves. But he sat electromagnetic waves with a wavelength of 13.5 cm.

On May 12, 1934, he succeeded in an attempt to measure a distance of 2100 m for the ship Grille. His experimental unit operating at a wavelength of 13.5 cm with 0.3 watt output with a method developed by Hans Erich Hollmann Barkhausen -Kurz- tube (now known as traveling wave tube ) onto a mounted in a parabolic reflector dipole antenna. In the course of development, he came up with the engineers Hans -Karl von Willisen and Paul Guenther Erbsloh by the Berlin firm tonography in contact. These two then succeeded in the episode on 12 October 1934, and on November 2, 1934 at the test site in Pelzer hook to extend the measurement distance to 12 km. The accelerated tremendously the wheels of bureaucracy, so that the development was commissioned by the Navy officially commissioned.

On September 26, 1935 Kühnhold presented to the High Command of the Navy, a radar, which was based on the principle of transmission of electromagnetic waves and receiving the resulting echo waves. In the experiment, the training ship Bremse was the target object and was successful, measured by a radar, which possessed at a wavelength of 48 cm above 40 watts. Due to the good results it was decided to develop the procedure.

Since the development of the highest classification subject, it was decided for the concept of " radio measurement " or for research on the lake and with electromagnetic waves using air reconnaissance to less captious and descriptive term decimeter - telegraphy.

Kühnhold is thus considered one of the co-inventor of the radar device.

See also: German Technical Equipment, Freya