Chief designer: Application of BeiDou Navigation Satellite System is limited only by imagination

With more and more countries recognizing China's BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS), the system is making greater contributions to promoting international cooperation in space, Yang Changfeng, chief designer of the BDS, said recently during the 16th meeting of the International Committee on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (ICG).

The stability and high accuracy of the BeiDou-3 Navigation Satellite System (BDS-3) has been fully verified since it was put into service more than two years ago, Yang said, adding that the BDS-3 system can achieve a global positioning accuracy of between 4 and 5 meters, and even more in the Asia-Pacific region.

People visit the first International Summit on BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) Applications, in Changsha, central China's Hunan Province, Sept. 16, 2021. (Xinhua/Chen Sihan)

After the BeiDou-3 system went into service, the capacity of BeiDou system's characteristic short message communication services has been significantly increased based on support from the BeiDou-2 Navigation Satellite System (BDS-2), Yang said.

The services have realized two-way information transmission capability and can be used via mobile phone. In addition, it can provide short message services in areas not covered by mobile communication signals, which makes the BeiDou system particularly useful in fields such as emergency search and rescue, Yang pointed out.

The BeiDou-3 system has become the first of its kind in the world to adopt a Ka-band inter-satellite link that enables all the BeiDou system’s satellites to connect to each other in a large network, according to Yang.

What the Ka-band inter-satellite link technology has done is very much like building a "chat group" for satellites, which allows the BeiDou system to provide high-accuracy global positioning and navigation services around the world without having to build ground stations, Yang explained.

"The application of BeiDou is limited only by the imagination," Yang said. The BeiDou system has been widely used in many fields, including land surveying and mapping, digital construction, and precision agriculture, and steady progress is being made in the system's application in autonomous driving and smart city construction, among other fields, according to Yang.

To date, the BeiDou system has been used in more than 120 countries and regions around the world, Yang said. Boasting relatively low costs and high accuracy, the system has become a high-tech and highly cost-effective global public good China has provided for the world, Yang said.

The large-scale application of the BeiDou system will realize marketization, industrialization and internationalization in the coming years, he added.

The original aspiration behind the establishment of the BeiDou system is to serve the world and benefit all of humanity, he noted, disclosing that the system will provide more products and services for overseas markets.