Domestic Beidou basic products have been exported to more than 120 countries and regions. Based on Beidou, land ownership confirmation, precision agriculture, digital construction, smart ports, etc. have been successfully applied in ASEAN, South Asia, Eastern Europe, West Asia, Africa, and other regions.

Beidou networking application

At this moment, the 55th Beidou navigation satellite is preparing to launch at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center. As the last networking satellite of Beidou-3, it arrived in Xichang on April 4th for testing, assembly and other work, and is planned to be launched into space in May. At that time, the deployment of the Beidou Navigation System's global constellation will be fully completed.

The construction of the Beidou system has gone through three stages: Beidou-1, Beidou-2, and Beidou-3. Currently, all four experimental satellites of Beidou-1 have been retired. Since the first satellite of Beidou-2, China has launched 54 Beidou navigation satellites, which is only one star away from the completion of the Beidou-3 system.

Complete globally

Core Constellation Deployment

At the one-year anniversary press conference of the Beidou-3 system providing global services held at the end of last year, Ran Chengqi, Director of the China Satellite Navigation System Management Office and spokesperson for the Beidou Satellite Navigation System, introduced that the Beidou system has achieved many results in system construction, application promotion, and international development in providing global services over the past year. The Beidou system's global coverage and service capabilities have been further improved, taking a solid step towards the goal of building a world-class satellite navigation system.

In 2019, the Beidou system implemented high-density launch of 7 arrows and 10 satellites. On December 16, 2019, the deployment of a core constellation consisting of 24 medium Earth orbit satellites was completed. The completion of the networking of all medium Earth orbit satellites of Beidou-3 marks the completion of the deployment of the core constellation of the Beidou-3 system. The Beidou-3 system we have built is completely independent innovation, independent design, independent construction, and independent controllability. It is a resounding product created by China, "said Ran Chengqi.

By enhancing the system's intelligent operation and maintenance capabilities, the Beidou-3 system operates continuously and stably, while achieving expected performance indicators such as service accuracy, availability, and continuity; The measured accuracy of horizontal and vertical positioning is better than 5 meters.

The Beidou system has initially formed capabilities for satellite based enhancement, precise positioning, timing, short message communication, and international search and rescue services. It has provided complete ground-based enhanced service capabilities, forming a Beidou characteristic application service system that integrates multiple service capabilities. It will provide users with more accurate, high-performance, and functionally diversified services.

Taking international search and rescue services as an example, Lin Baojun, the chief engineer of the Beidou-3 project satellite, stated that this is a free public welfare service mainly used for locating and rescuing distressed targets on water, land, and in the air. Previously, such search and rescue systems could only provide one-way alarm information from the seeker to the satellite. As for whether the distress message has been sent or whether the rescue force has received it, the seeker cannot know and can only blindly wait. The characteristic of the Beidou system is the confirmation function of the return link, which can send the receipt information and the readiness of ground rescue forces to the seeker. The seeker feels at ease and their confidence in being rescued is greatly increased.

It is precisely these distinctive services that distinguish the Beidou system from other satellite navigation systems - Beidou is not just about navigation.

Independent research and development

Connect the Beidou industry chain

Since Beidou provided global services, the confidence of various industries in China to apply Beidou has doubled, and the Beidou industry has been comprehensively laid out. The industrial ecosystem of "Beidou+" and "Beidou+" has been further enriched and improved, and the scale, industrialization, and international application of Beidou have reached a new level.

New signals give rise to new products. The 22 nanometer process RF baseband integrated navigation and positioning chip supporting the new signal of Beidou-3, which was released at the end of 2019, has a smaller size, lower power consumption, and higher accuracy, and has achieved large-scale application. The chip is so small that it is almost invisible, but the invisible small chip can provide very high-quality services. At the same time, the new generation of Beidou high-precision antennas, boards, broadband RF chips and other series of products have been developed, and their performance indicators continue to improve, making them suitable for large-scale application and promotion. In addition, mainstream foreign manufacturers have also launched basic products for the new signal of Beidou-3.

Integrating applications to expand new fields. Beidou system has broad prospects in emerging applications such as industrial Internet, Internet of Things, Internet of Vehicles, and innovative applications such as automatic driving, automatic parking, and automatic logistics emerge in endlessly. It is particularly noteworthy that the commercialization of 5G and the collaboration of Beidou are highly anticipated. With the arrival of the 5G commercial era, Beidou is accelerating its integration with new technologies such as next-generation communication, blockchain, and artificial intelligence, and new models and formats of Beidou applications are constantly emerging.

Traditional applications add new vitality. The integration of the Beidou system with traditional application fields such as transportation, agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, and fishery, as well as power and energy, continues to deepen, expand in scale, and further demonstrate its effectiveness. The dynamic supervision system for operating vehicles constructed and operated by the Ministry of Transport has exceeded 6.5 million vehicles connected to the network, and is being deeply promoted in railway transportation, inland waterway transportation, ocean navigation, air transportation, and transportation infrastructure construction management.

Ensure that the environment supports new development. Actively promoting the legal construction of national satellite navigation, the solicitation of opinions on the "Regulations of the People's Republic of China on Satellite Navigation" has been basically completed.

In addition, in recent years, China's satellite navigation patent applications have shown a rapid growth trend. As of the end of this year, a total of 70000 applications have been filed, ranking first in the world; The national and special standards of Beidou have been successively released, and the application industry guarantee environment is gradually improving.

Post Beidou era

More worth looking forward to

Entering a new era of global services, the Beidou system is also contributing to the construction of a community with a shared future for mankind and a community of temporal and spatial services.

One is to deepen and solidify bilateral cooperation. The intergovernmental cooperation agreement on satellite navigation between China and Russia provides organizational and legal guarantees for cooperation in building monitoring stations between China and Russia; Deepening signal interoperability and coordination between China and the United States; China and Europe carry out frequency coordination. Multiple parties continue to promote system compatibility and sharing, allowing global users to better enjoy the benefits of multiple systems.

Secondly, significant achievements have been made in multilateral cooperation. China has actively made its voice heard on multilateral platforms such as the United Nations International Committee on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (ICG), and successfully held the second China Arab Beidou Cooperation Forum and the first China Central Asia Beidou Cooperation Forum. Cooperation with countries and international organizations along the "the Belt and Road" has become more extensive, and the Beidou "circle of friends" has continued to expand.

The third is the landing of Beidou applications overseas. Domestic Beidou basic products have been exported to more than 120 countries and regions. Based on Beidou, land ownership confirmation, precision agriculture, digital construction, smart ports, etc. have been successfully applied in ASEAN, South Asia, Eastern Europe, West Asia, Africa, and other regions.

The fourth is the rapid advancement of international standards. The Beidou global signal technology indicators were basically verified last year and are planned to enter the standards of the International Civil Aviation Organization this year; The first 5G mobile communication international standard supporting the new signal of Beidou-3 has been successfully approved; We are currently developing standard documents and conducting network testing for the BeiDou medium orbit search and rescue payload; The first Beidou shipborne terminal detection standard has been reviewed by the International Electrotechnical Commission.

Ran Chengqi stated that by 2035, a more ubiquitous, integrated, and intelligent national comprehensive positioning, navigation, and timing system will be established with the Beidou system as its core, further enhancing the ability to provide spatiotemporal information services and achieving high-quality construction and development of Beidou.

At the beginning of this year, the Beidou navigation system in the sprint stage was "obstructed" by the COVID-19, but Beidou people strengthened the epidemic prevention and control in their tasks, and established and improved various epidemic prevention systems and measures. Pay attention to the use of information technology, intelligence and other means, and complete remote testing, remote fault diagnosis, and remote technical coordination through video connection between the front and back parties to achieve joint inspection and ensure that tasks are foolproof.

The 55th Beidou navigation satellite is about to be launched, and the Beidou people's "star arrangement" of more than 30 years is about to be completed.