Measuring China over the past Five Years: Forging "Chinese Precision" in the Slightest Detail

The great achievements of a nation begin with the tiniest details. Since the "14th Five-Year Plan", China's high-end manufacturing industry has gradually reached new heights, which is inseparable from the meticulous efforts of "Chinese precision". A metal bar with a diameter of 30 millimeters, after 21 consecutive hours of milling operation by a high-precision CNC machine tool, eventually produced 127 needle-shaped specimens with a diameter of 0.05 millimeters, which were as thin as a human hair. This scene comes from an advanced CNC machine tool developed by a company in Shandong Province, which is a microcosm of "Chinese precision". The precision of manufacturing reflects the technological level of a country's manufacturing industry. This is not only reflected in the manufacturing capacity of microscopic dimensions and fine structures, but also in the accuracy and sensitivity of measurement. "Precision" is like a "ruler" for industrial development. Especially in high-end manufacturing, the measurement accuracy requirements for certain key links are extremely high. A slight deviation may affect the accuracy of the results. With the expansion of the development demands of China's large-scale equipment manufacturing industry, precision measurement technology is constantly evolving towards large-sized and large-space measurements. This year, China approved the establishment of a long-length reference device with a measurement range of 80 meters and an error of only 2.45 micrometers within the measurement range, which is equivalent to a person distinguishing the diameter of a human hair from 1,600 meters away, reaching the international leading level.This long-length reference device fills the gap in the highest measurement capacity for long lengths in the manufacturing industry, significantly enhancing the precision and quality reliability of processing and assembly of key components for large equipment such as spacecraft docking, aircraft wing-body assembly, and ship hull assembly measurement. It is of great significance for promoting high-quality development in the manufacturing industry. In the field of quantum precision measurement in China, breakthroughs have also been made recently. The brand-new atomic spin sensor developed by Beihang University has successfully achieved ultra-high sensitivity and traceable precise measurement of weak magnetic fields. It can accurately measure magnetic signals that are a billion times weaker than the Earth's magnetic field in a near-geomagnetic magnetic environment, perfectly achieving "precise measurement" and "accurate measurement". From large-scale equipment on land to the "capture" of magnetic signals in the vast universe, during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, "Chinese precision" has been continuously improving. The related achievements not only fill the gap and improve the development system of China's measurement science and technology, but also provide technical support for basic scientific research, high-end equipment manufacturing, space exploration and other fields.