Beidou Navigation System empowers the entire industrial chain
Beidou network, stars shine all over the world.
On July 29, the reporter learned from the China Satellite Navigation System Management Office that the last networking satellite of the Beidou-3 system has completed in-orbit testing, network access evaluation, and has been officially connected to the network recently.
In ancient times, there was Beidou Seven Stars to identify the direction, and now there is Beidou Satellite Positioning Kyushu. This global satellite navigation system independently built and operated by our country will provide global users with all-weather, all-day, high-precision positioning, navigation and timing services. What are the capabilities of Beidou satellite navigation system and how to achieve the development of the whole industry chain? How will Beidou satellite global networking promote the transformation of production and life and empower the development of industries?
Have five abilities
Beidou satellite navigation system is an important space infrastructure independently built and operated by our country, and it is also the largest, widest coverage and highest service performance giant complex space system in our country so far.
Speaking of Beidou, many people’s first reaction is "navigation and positioning". Real-time navigation and fast positioning are the most basic functions of a satellite navigation system. In addition, Beidou also has three features: accurate timing, location reporting and short message communication.
"The Beidou satellite itself is a timing system in our country," said Lu Xiaochun, deputy director of the National Time Service Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The accuracy of the on-board rubidium atomic clock on the Beidou-3 satellite is at the international leading level, and can reach 5 10 billion seconds per day. At present, this function has been widely used in communications, power, finance and other systems.
The location reporting function is closely related to the characteristics of Beidou’s "active positioning". Active positioning is a major innovation of China’s Beidou. Using radio measurement technology, through two geostationary orbit satellites, it can not only answer the user’s "where am I", but also tell the relevant parties who follow the user’s whereabouts "where are you". It is widely used in search and rescue, fishing and other fields, and is a "clairvoyant" to ensure the safety of people’s livelihood.
The short message communication function is the "unique stunt" of the Beidou system. Navigation satellites and communications satellites are two types of satellites, but Beidou navigation satellites have additional communication functions. Wang Bo, deputy secretary-general of the China Satellite Navigation and Positioning Association, said that Beidou users can use the end point to not only know their location, but also tell others about their situation through short messages. This function is crucial in areas without network coverage such as deserts, distant oceans, deep mountains and forests, or when disasters occur and communication is blocked.
"After the Wenchuan earthquake, all ground communication facilities have been completely disconnected. The information is actually based on the short message and short message function of Beidou-1. Although it is only capable of a few hundred Chinese characters, it was very effective at that time." Wang Ping, chief designer of Beidou-3 satellite at the Fifth Academy of Aerospace Science and Technology Group, said.
In the Beidou-3 system, the ability of short message communication has been significantly improved, and the information sending capacity has been increased from 120 Chinese characters to 1200 Chinese characters at the first time, which is widely used in many fields such as ocean fishing, rescue and disaster relief, and global search and rescue. According to Yu Xiancheng, president of the China Satellite Navigation and Positioning Association, more than 70,000 fishing boats and law enforcement vessels across the country have installed Beidou end point, and a total of more than 10,000 people have been rescued.
The Beidou satellite navigation system consists of three parts: the space segment, the ground segment, and the user segment. It is worth mentioning that the Beidou space segment uses a hybrid constellation of three orbiting satellites. In addition to having medium-circle earth orbit satellites like the US GPS, European Galileo, and Russian GLONASS satellite navigation systems, it also has geostationary orbit satellites and tilted geosynchronous orbit satellites. These two types of satellites belong to high-orbit satellites. The higher the satellite, the stronger its anti-occlusion ability. Whether it is in a city with high-rise buildings or in a mountainous area with many obstructions, Beidou can still "hold on to its post" when other satellite systems cannot be positioned. Especially in low latitudes, Beidou performance is more advantageous.
Benefit domestic service global
On May 27, China’s 2020 Mount Everest elevation survey mountaineering team successfully topped the world’s highest peak, Mount Everest.
15 years ago, when our country measured the elevation of Mount Everest, the global navigation satellite system (GNSS) satellite measurement mainly relied on the GPS system of the United States. And this measurement, our country also referred to the four global satellite navigation systems of China Beidou, the United States GPS, the European Galileo, and the Russian Glonass, and mainly used the data of Beidou. Among them, the Beidou high-precision positioning equipment developed by the Shanghai Huatai Navigation Technology joint stock company played an important role in the measurement.
The headquarters of China Test Navigation is located in Beidou Industrial Park, Xihongqiao, Qingpu District, Shanghai. There are more than 100 companies related to the Beidou industry. The upper, middle and lower reaches of the Beidou industry chain have formed close connections.
From the application level, how is the Beidou industrial chain divided?
It is understood that the "Beidou" industrial chain is mainly concentrated in the user segment of the Beidou system, divided into three links: upstream basic components, midstream end points, and downstream operation services. Among them, upstream basic components are mainly chips, boards, antennas and other basic components; midstream end points mainly refer to navigation and positioning devices that can receive "Beidou" signals; downstream operation services mainly refer to providing various basic services such as positioning, navigation, timing, and short message communication based on "Beidou" for government and enterprise users, industry users, service providers, and mass consumers.
From providing services for the Asia-Pacific region to providing services for the world, Beidou realizes global networking, which not only means that Beidou has a wider coverage of services, but also benefits the entire industrial chain. The related industrial chain products have a set of support systems. The experience, stability and reliability of these products will be greatly improved, especially in the chip and end point industries.
The R & D and production technology of Beidou chips is gradually maturing. The 28-nanometer chip supporting the "Beidou No. 3" system signal has been widely used in the field of Internet of Things and consumer electronics. The 22-nanometer dual-frequency positioning chip has met the market application conditions. The full-frequency integrated high-precision chip has been put into production, and the performance of Beidou chips has reached a new level. By the end of 2019, the shipment of domestic Beidou navigation chip modules has exceeded 100 million pieces, and the quarterly shipment has exceeded 10 million pieces. Beidou navigation chips, modules, high-precision boards and antennas have been exported to more than 100 countries and regions.
In terms of end point products, taking smartphones as an example, in 2019, the total sales volume of domestic satellite navigation and positioning end point products exceeded 460 million units, of which the sales volume of smartphones reached 372 million units. As of the third quarter of 2019, more than 400 mobile phones that applied for network access in the Chinese market had positioning functions, of which nearly 300 supported Beidou positioning.
The whole industrial chain of Beidou is making efforts, which not only benefits China but also serves the world. "In 2019, Beidou’s overseas application cooperation and trade exchanges have become more frequent. Domestic Beidou basic products have been exported to more than 120 countries and regions. Land rights confirmation, precision agriculture, smart construction, smart ports, etc. based on Beidou have been successfully applied in ASEAN, South Asia, Eastern Europe, West Asia, Africa and other places." Yu Xiancheng said.
Aerospace Science and Technology Group Wuyuan Aerospace Stellar Company has developed more than 1,000 kinds of satellite application products so far, including Beidou navigation handheld, Beidou ship-borne end point, Beidou vehicle-mounted end point, etc. "In 2019, our ship-borne end point products successfully entered the Myanmar fishery market. So far, more than 1,000 sets of ship-borne end point products have been delivered. It not only provides services such as ship positioning supervision, no-fishing and no-navigation area management for Myanmar’s fishery supervision department, but also provides fishermen with positioning and navigation, catch reporting, text communication and alarm and rescue functions." The relevant person in charge of Aerospace Stellar told reporters.
The completion of the Beidou system will greatly promote a new round of development of our country’s satellite navigation industry. The "2020 China Satellite Navigation and location-based service industry development white paper" (hereinafter referred to as the "white paper") shows that in 2019, the total output value of our country’s satellite navigation and location-based service industry reached 345 billion yuan, an increase of 14.4% over 2018. It is expected that the overall output value of the industry will exceed 400 billion yuan in 2020.
Applications are limited only by imagination
Signals are on the horizon, applied around.
From clothing, food, housing, transportation to water, electricity, gas, heat, from agriculture, forestry and fisheries to disaster relief and mitigation… The Beidou satellite navigation system is deeply integrated into social life and penetrates into all aspects of economic and social development.
Driving on the road, which road is smoother? Bus travel, how long will it take for the car to arrive at the station? Shared riding, how can I quickly find a bicycle? No matter what mode of transportation you choose, you can’t do without the Beidou satellite navigation system.
The transportation industry is one of the largest users of the Beidou satellite navigation system. The Beidou system is widely used in key transportation process monitoring, highway infrastructure safety monitoring, port high-precision real-time dispatch monitoring and other fields. According to the data of the White Paper, by the end of 2019, more than 6.50 million operating vehicles, 40,000 express and postal vehicles, about 80,000 buses in 36 cities, more than 3,200 inland river navigation facilities, and more than 2,900 marine navigation facilities in China had applied the Beidou system, and built the world’s largest operating vehicle dynamic supervision system.
"Where" and "what time" constitute the measurement coordinates of our daily work and life. Invisible and intangible time and space information is not only an indispensable important guarantee in people’s lives, but also an important infrastructure of the national economy.
Intelligent port construction is regarded as an important means to enhance the core competitiveness of ports. Previously, the Ministry of Transport and other nine departments issued the "Guiding Opinions on Building World-Class Ports", proposing to build information infrastructure based on Beidou satellite navigation system and other technologies, and promote the automatic driving demonstration of trucks in the port area and special scenes.
In Wuhan Huashan Port, rows of bridge cranes, ship cranes, and track cranes are arranged in sequence, and "flatbed trucks" about 15 meters long and with a maximum load of 75 tons are driving independently. A series of operations such as parking, packing, leaving, parking, and unloading are completely completed independently.
This is a 5G intelligent unmanned container transfer truck that uses Beidou positioning. Compared with traditional container unmanned trucks that rely on "magnetic nails" on the ground to locate and move, the Beidou navigation system can provide higher-precision spatiotemporal information, transmit data through the 5G network, and enable the car to sense various objects within 200 meters, and the parking positioning accuracy is controlled within 5 centimeters.
The accuracy is controlled within 5 centimeters – this is not the "limit" of Beidou. High-precision service is a major feature of Beidou. The service accuracy of traditional navigation systems is "meter-level" or even "10-meter-level", and higher-precision services are rarely opened to the civilian market. Beidou "has a national network", and with the help of more than 2,000 ground-based enhancement stations, the Beidou system has the ability to provide users with decimeter-level, centimeter-level and even millimeter-level positioning accuracy.
When agriculture meets Beidou, sowing is more labor-saving, seedling emergence is more worry-free, and labor production efficiency is greatly improved. In the farmland of Dashetai Town, Wulateqian Banner, Bayannur City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, unmanned seeders are becoming increasingly "ordinary" from "rare things". Based on the Beidou positioning function, the seeders operate by themselves along the preset route. With this precise and scientific method, the sowing deviation per kilometer does not exceed 2 cm, and the seedling emergence rate per mu can be increased by 10%.
According to statistics, the agricultural machinery automatic driving system based on the Beidou system has more than 20,000 sets, saving 50% of labor costs; the agricultural machinery operation supervision platform and the Internet of Things platform based on the Beidou system provide services for more than 100,000 sets of agricultural machinery equipment, greatly improving the operation management efficiency.
When disaster warning meets Beidou, people are safer and property is guaranteed. Not long ago, in Leijiashan, Shimen County, Hunan Province, thanks to the "Beidou Satellite High-Precision Earth Disaster Monitoring and Early Warning System", villagers located in the landslide danger area were promptly transferred without any casualties. Through 24-hour real-time monitoring of the deformation and displacement of mountains, reservoirs, and rivers, Beidou provides early warning of possible landslides, subsidence, cracks, reservoirs, and river water levels to protect lives and reduce losses.
On the special battlefield, Beidou also responded quickly and made every effort to fight. At the beginning of 2020, a battle against the COVID-19 epidemic was launched in Shenzhou, and Huoshen Mountain and Leishenshan Hospital rose from the ground. It was Beidou that achieved high-precision positioning and accurate plotting for complex terrain and landforms; the national "Qianxun Location" online drone platform can realize epidemic prevention operations such as drone precision spraying, providing it with high-precision data, and it is also Beidou; the real-time supervision and control of material transportation vehicles, intelligent machines will quickly send medical materials delivered to the hospital isolation area, and the support system behind it is still Beidou…
The Beidou system collides with new technologies such as new generation 5G mobile communication, blockchain, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, etc., builds an emerging industrial ecological chain with Beidou spatiotemporal information as the main content, and promotes the transformation of production and lifestyle and the continuous innovation of business models, which will create huge economic and social benefits.
In the future, Beidou has infinite possibilities. As Academician Sun Jiadong, the first chief designer of Beidou satellite navigation system, once said, "Beidou’s application is only limited by human imagination". (Our reporters, Chai Yaxin, Fu Xiaojing)