Commercial uses of the Beidou constellation (1/2) 9 August 2020 A summary by Lucie Sénéchal Perrouault, PhD student at CNRS. How to adapt the terminals to the Beidou navigation system ? Various areas of use come into play. China Business News – 24 June 2020. ___________ The 23 last june, the 55th satellite of the Beidou constellation, was put into orbit by a Long March 3B launch vehicle from the Xichang base. This launch finalizes the global coverage and third phase of the Chinese geopositioning system, Beidou. French-speaking media (for instance Le Figaro; the Obs ; the echoes) relaying the first article of South China Morning Post via an AFP dispatch rather analyzed the event as a manifestation of Sino-American technological rivalry. On the Chinese Internet, a surprising profusion of articles and posts attaches to the signal reception : on the different phone models, on the ‘national’ laptops vis-à-vis foreign brands (especially Apple), the possibility of cut off the GPS signal or warnings against Paid Beidou app scams. These articles in short format decline for the first time the elements of language of a press conference from 21 May in which Yang Changfeng member of the National People's Consultative Conference Commission and chief engineer of the navigation system said that 70% mobile terminals produced in the country are already equipped with components allowing it to receive the signal. Apart from the military issues of independence to foreign signals, access to which can be blocked in the event of a conflict, geopositioning technologies have many civilian applications, especially in road transport, rail and maritime but also urban management and agriculture. Financial and scientific specialized journals thus evoke the repercussions for national development, but also new business opportunities for Chinese companies at home and abroad. L’article de Yicai First Finance and Economics (China Business News), a finance and trade publication, provides an organized approach to civil issues relating to the compatibility of Beidou signals. It details the problem of compatibility with the Beidou signal at four distinct levels which correspond globally to the production cycle of the terminals : the initial framework set by the standards, the production of the components in a second step, followed by that of terminals and downstream applications to finish. This pedagogical presentation is useful for readers of all backgrounds to concretely identify the various issues involved.. It also makes it possible to address several important topics. The place given to standards, if it is hardly surprising in a technically demanding and strategically crucial field, implicitly raises questions of technological governance at the international level, national industrial policy. Downstream applications are seen as harboring significant commercial potential, notably in coordination with the New Silk Roads initiative (BRI). Translation of the article : The last satellite of the Beidou global network 3 deployed successfully after its launch on the morning of 23 [June]. This means that it is only a matter of time before China's independently built and operated global navigation satellite system will provide users around the world with comprehensive high-precision navigation and global service., at any time and in any weather. What changes will Beidou Satellite Navigation System bring to our lives? Which industries will be affected and will be areas of implementation? How to adapt the terminals ? To make the Beidou sat nav system really work, it implies that compatibility is ensured at three levels : standards, components and terminals. First of all, it is necessary to standardize the high-level design. “For the terminal industry to join the Beidou satellite navigation system, associated equipment must be equipped with compatible chips. China has already issued relevant technical standards”, says Hu Qimu (Hu Qimu), chief researcher at the digital economy institute (Institute of Digital Economy), in an interview with a China Business News reporter. Le Beidou Satellite Navigation Standard System (Version 1.0) (Beidou Satellite Navigation Standard System (Version 1.0)), is the most widely referenced and used in the industry today. It was published in 2015, and understand 171 technical standards, application for basic products, location service and application infrastructure. These are divided into : 107 national standards, 34 special standards for civilian use of Beidou, 12 transportation industry standards, 3 aeronautical information bulletins. The industries of : surveying and mapping ; oil and gas ; electronics and civil aviation count are respectively objects of 2 standards. Urban construction, railways, postal services, safety production, water conservation, electrical energy and the armament industries are subject to a standard each. The article insists on technological and engineering standards. Issue of importance in the eyes of public authorities, it is the subject of renewed attention under the mandates of Xi Jinping, the bodies concerned have been rearranged into 2018. Their adoption abroad is supposed to promote the export of national products, but also strengthen the country's credibility in areas of high technological value. Their usefulness for the upgrading of Chinese industry is evident at the national level. In the space, some observers give the standards a broader scope, aimed at framing new entrants to the industry: good administrative practices, internal organization, production methods etc.. Secondly, it is necessary to achieve that basic products are compatible. Fleas, modules, antennae, cards, etc. are components of the implementation of Beidou navigation satellites, and a prerequisite for its use on end devices. Right now, China has successfully mastered these commodities independently and formed a complete industrial chain. According to a report published by the China Association of Satellite Navigation and Positioning (China Satellite Navigation and Positioning Association), fin 2019, sales of domestic Beidou compatible chips and modules exceeded the 100 millions, total sales of domestic satellite navigation and positioning terminals exceeded 460 millions. Today, the total inventory of private terminal products using Beidou compatible chips exceeded the 700 million units. Thirdly, the adaptation of the terminals must take into account the industrial configuration. Which areas are full of industrial opportunities? Hu Qimu told reporters that terminal products on the Beidou satellite navigation system industry chain include on-board equipment on land vehicles and ships., laptops and mobile phones. In the future, market demand for these devices will be huge. “At present, more 70% of smartphones in China use the Beidou system, but since mobile phones still use the term 'GPS' to refer to all navigation systems combined, we don't realize. The total number of terminals using Beidou compatible chips has exceeded 700 millions, and that number keeps growing. » More fields of application The use of Beidou is also very common in the field of transport. Take this for example, Beidou's applications include three main areas : land, sea and air. Terrestrial applications cover autonomous vehicle navigation, vehicle tracking and monitoring, vehicle networking applications, railway operations monitoring, etc.; navigation apps cover shipping, river navigation, etc. Sun Wenjian Sun Wenjian, Ministry of Transport spokesperson, said at an official press conference in June that more than 6,6 million road vehicles, 51000 express delivery vehicles, 1356 government ships, 8600 water navigational aids, 109 coastal ground reinforcement stations and 300 general aircraft used the Beidou system nationally. With the export of components in more than 120 countries and regions, multiple application scenarios of Beidou satellite navigation systems are gradually being put into action in countries related to the Belt and Road initiative. They provide a solid foundation for globalization and the large-scale development of Chinese industry.. “Determining Farmland Ownership in Indonesia, construction of buildings in Kuwait, land surveying and mapping in Uganda, precision farming in Myanmar, offshore platforms in the Maldives, drones in cambodia, warehousing and logistics in Thailand, and electrical inspection in Russia are already using Beidou navigation technology”, said Hu Qimu. He believes that areas related to precise positioning, such as building, surveying and mapping as well as precision agriculture, are the first beneficiaries abroad. The combination of the New Silk Roads with the Beidou geopositioning constellation is not new. If the second project, thought from the end of the years 1980 could not include BRIs as an entry, officially launched in 2013, a joint text by SASTIND and the Commission for Reform and Openness for the establishment of a ‘Spatial Information Corridor’ is published in 2016. It envisages the realization of public services for the benefit of third countries from remote sensing data, telecommunications and geopositioning, but also for the benefit of private companies marketing applications useful for planned infrastructure works. The text of 2016 will be the subject of an in-depth analysis in a forthcoming article in Asia Center. “Among the four main satellite navigation systems in the world, Beidou is the largest in terms of number of satellites. It is not only very stable, but still it allows high precision positioning to the nearest centimeter, an accuracy that far exceeds that of the other three systems.” he declares. According to him, from the perspective of development trends, Beidou satellite navigation has three major advantages. In terms of technology, China currently holds the most satellite navigation patents. In terms of applications, the combination “5G + Beidou” makes the application of the Beidou system more competitive, Chinese 5G being at the forefront of the world. In terms of market scale, outside the national market of an already titanic volume, the BRI being co-built will also vigorously put it into play. » The content of these last two paragraphs is more debatable. Official claims of better signal accuracy are unclear as to their basis of comparison, the civilian version of the GPS signal, available to everyone from 2000 following a decision by Bill Clinton, is a degraded version of the military version. Regarding exchanges of space technologies along the New Silk Roads, they are currently made difficult by US export control regulations on the side hardware. Side software, returns on investment are far from obvious, what we will be looking at in the next episode ! This content is for subscribers only. Identify yourself or create an account by clicking here