At 9:43 p.m. on June 23, 2020, the last global networking satellite of Beidou-3 was successfully launched from Xichang Satellite Launch Center. From the launch of the first satellite of BeiDou 1 in 2000 to the final satellite of BeiDou 3 in orbit, Chinese astronauts used their collective wisdom to overcome countless difficulties and obstacles before finally completing this magnificent aerospace project. However, do we really fully understand what the Beidou system is? Recently, the so-called "BeiDou" has become the center of discussion on social media. In fact, the concept of "Beidou down" is quite a bit of a misunderstanding.
The full name of the Beidou system is Beidou Navigation Satellite System (English name: Beidou Navigation Satellite System, referred to as BDS). The Beidou satellite navigation system is an open and compatible giant complex space system built independently by China. I wrote an article related to Beidou last year when the final satellite of Beidou was launched. At that time, I realized that many people have more or less misunderstanding about Beidou system. Today, I'm going to take a look at some of the more common misconceptions, and explain them one by one.
One of the misunderstandings: we only started using Beidou last year
With the successful launch of the last satellite in the Beidou Navigation Satellite Network on June 23, 2020, China's Beidou-3 navigation satellite system has been fully deployed successfully. So far, the deployment of the Beidou 3 global satellite navigation system has been fully completed half a year earlier than originally planned. The successful launch of the final star of Beidou on June 23 this year marks the final completion of all the work of the network, which means that the Beidou navigation system really has the ability to cover the globe, but before that, some of the functions of the Beidou have actually begun to be applied.
As early as 2000, BeiDou 1 began to provide some services, and in 2012, BeiDou 2 began to serve the Asia-Pacific region. 2008 Wenchuan earthquake relief had used the "short message" function of BeiDou. During the construction of Wuhan Vulcan and Leishenshan hospitals, the rapid assistance of BeiDou's high-precision positioning equipment ensured that most of the alignment measurements at the sites were completed in one go, thus realizing high-precision positioning and accurate marking, and demonstrating to the world China's power to build a hospital in ten days. This shows that we have been using the Beidou system for a long time.
Of course, these are the national macro-level uses just mentioned. Currently on the market in China's smart phones and a variety of mobile terminals are roughly divided into two categories: Android models have generally been realized to take into account the Beidou navigation services, while Apple models do not support Beidou.
Myth #2: BeiDou will replace GPS in our country
Many people have this kind of doubt: Since our country now has its own BeiDou system, why do we still have GPS on our phones? If it is a misunderstanding to think that we are only starting to use Beidou from now on, then in fact we have the same misunderstanding about GPS. Even though we often talk about GPS, many people don't really understand the meaning of the word, GPS is an acronym for Global Positioning System, so the original meaning of GPS is Global Positioning.
Strictly speaking, the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS), China's Global Positioning System (GPS), Russia's GPS, and the European Union's GPS belong to the category of GPS, except that the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS) is the earliest of all global positioning technologies, so the U.S. has made a bold move to call its own global positioning system GPS. The U.S. GPS system was put on the market at a very early stage, and almost all countries had used the system, and the U.S. basically realized a monopoly in the field at that time. This gives the term "GPS" both a broad and a narrow meaning.
GPS in the broad sense means global positioning, a broad concept that covers the four major navigation systems of the United States' Global Positioning System (GPS), Russia's GLONASS, Europe's Galileo, and China's Compass/BeiDou, and GPS in the narrow sense refers specifically to the United States' Global Positioning System (GPS). Nowadays, the GPS displayed on cell phones does not specifically refer to the American version of GPS, but is compatible with the four major global positioning systems at the same time. In fact, we don't even need to worry about whether our phones are displaying "GPS" or something else, as long as we know that the domestic phones produced after 2015 have already started using Beidou.
Misunderstanding No. 3: Foreigners can't use Beidou
On July 31, 2020, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said in a statement to the public that "Beidou is not only China's Beidou, but also the world's Beidou, which serves China as well as the world". The Beidou-2 has been serving the Asia-Pacific region since 2012, and in 2013 we signed an agreement with Pakistan, thus introducing the Beidou satellite navigation system to Pakistan. At present, we have set up a ground station network of BeiDou navigation system in Pakistan. The Beidou navigation satellite network has long covered Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, as well as other neighboring areas.
Some people on the Internet are eager to speculate that "foreigners can not use China's Beidou system" is actually a non-existent pseudo-proposition, because in fact, more than half of the world's countries have long been using our Beidou system. Nowadays, the Beidou satellite navigation system has been widely recognized in ASEAN, South Asia, Eastern Europe, West Asia and Africa. China's Beidou satellite navigation system can be seen everywhere in these countries in the confirmation of land rights, precision agriculture, digitalization, airport timing services, vehicle and ship monitoring and management, and smart port management systems.
Myth #4: You need to download a special app to connect to Beidou
The introduction of the phone usually lists what positioning is supported. Currently Huawei cell phone support positioning: GPS (L1 + L5 dual-frequency) / AGPS / GLONASS / BeiDou (B1I + B1C + B2a three-frequency) / Galileo (E1 + E5a dual-frequency) / QZSS (L1 + L5 dual-frequency) / Navic. millet cell phone support positioning: BeiDou: B1I + B2a 丨 GPS :L1 + L5 丨 Galileo E1+E5a 丨 GLONASS: G1 丨 QZSS: L1+L5 丨 AGPS and so on. This shows that most of the current domestic cell phones are compatible with a variety of navigation systems at the same time, including the Beidou system.
A few years ago, the world's four major positioning systems signed an agreement on civil information *** enjoyment: the four systems *** the same for global services. The four systems are the same for global services. When our cell phones receive satellite signals, which satellite signal is the strongest among the four systems, we will receive which satellite. If you are in a location where the BeiDou signal is weak, then the positioning device in your hand will automatically switch to GPS (narrow) navigation; in turn, if you are in a location where the GPS (narrow) signal is weak, then the navigation device in your hand will automatically switch to the BeiDou navigation system; and sometimes it may also switch to the Russian GLONASS system or the European Union's Galileo system.
Mobile positioning does not require manual intervention to determine which positioning system to use, but rather uses a combination of multiple navigation systems. This means that you don't need to manually select a specific system to use when navigating with your phone. If a region of a certain satellite performance is not good, then the positioning device will automatically choose to use another navigation system for positioning, so we do not need to use navigation specifically download Beidou navigation, just continue to use the original Gao De map, Baidu map, Tencent map can be, because they are all support for the Beidou system.
We may want to think about our usual Baidu Maps, AutoNavi Maps and other APP navigation, so you have seen Baidu launched its own navigation satellite? And before we do not have Beidou when using GPS (narrow) navigation, but who has seen what the GPS APP looks like? As long as your phone or terminal can receive the Beidou signal, you can use the Beidou navigation system, and you don't need to download any special apps.
Myth #5: Whether the Beidou system charges
In fact, whether it is the U.S. GPS or China's Beidou satellite navigation is to charge, but its charging mode is not the so-called rent and loan, there is nothing to the network fee, the use of fees. So what exactly rely on what charges? The answer is to rely on the chip. The chip is specifically used to receive satellite signals. When you need to navigate, it is the chip that plays a role. In fact, you can buy a cell phone or a car with navigation software and a chip installed on it, so the cost is actually included in the cost of the cell phone or the car.
Foreigners and Chinese simply use Beidou navigation for free, but if you want to use a cell phone or car with a Beidou chip, you need to pay for it. To take a simple example: when you used to turn on your cell phone and use GPS, did you pay a fee to the U.S. government? Now you can use China's Beidou system for free. In reality, the reason why some people would form the idea of using BeiDou is because they are confusing the concept of BeiDou system and BeiDou products: while simply using the BeiDou system is free of charge, using the BeiDou chipset in the product is not free of charge.
Many cell phone users believe that they are being charged for using Beidou to locate a location because they have been misled by an app called "Beidou Maps". As I mentioned above, you don't need to download a special app to use the Beidou system, so all those navigation apps with the word "Beidou" in the cell phone mall are actually using Beidou as a signboard to collect money from the people's pockets. The positioning recorders for large trucks are actually somewhat similar to cell phone APPs: although the producers of truck positioning recorders give themselves the name of "Beidou", there is no direct link to the Beidou satellites.
The Beidou satellite navigation system has been open since the completion of the opening of the global free navigation, positioning, timing and other services, but the actual use of third-party software or hardware. Large trucks Beidou satellite positioning device, Beidou short message communication terminal or other terminal products are developed through the enterprise. These products are essentially commodities developed and produced by self-financing enterprises, and the BeiDou system, which provides free services, is a completely different matter. Since these "Beidou products" are essentially commodities, they cannot be provided free of charge.
Misunderstanding #6: What is "Beidou down"?
Here we do not discuss the actual situation of personal operation, if we look at the purely technical "Beidou dropped" there may be two reasons: First, the satellite navigation system signal problems; Second, the enterprise production equipment problems. Signal vulnerability is the global satellite navigation system (GNSS) natural loopholes: including China Beidou, the United States GPS, including the global satellite navigation system due to the high altitude of the orbit as well as a variety of interference in the environmental section of the various reasons leading to the satellite signal transmission to reach the ground on the more vulnerable.
This is a worldwide problem for any kind of navigation system. Countries around the world, including China, have taken some measures to solve this problem: most of the current positioning devices will be combined with the ground base station to do signal enhancement, in addition to the four global positioning systems mentioned above, civil information **** to enjoy is also to solve the problem of a particular system in a particular area of the signal is weak. The concept of "Beidou down" is actually very loose, because it will make people think that the Beidou satellite is down.
According to the relevant industry sources, "Beidou satellite navigation system has dozens of satellites will be 24 hours a day in a constant stream of transmitting signals. Even if one of the transit can not receive the signal, then the other satellites will continue to send signals. Take a step back even if there really is a Beidou system signal is not good, then the ultimate impact will be a large area, can never only affect a truck single device. "This large area" can be tens of square kilometers, may also be the entire province can not receive the signal. Therefore, if the navigation system itself has a problem, there is no way to hide it.
As mentioned above, the Beidou satellite positioning device for trucks is developed by the company itself. In fact, the current market for positioning recorders in China is not very standardized: there is no national unified software platform for this industry, and the manufacturers of those recorders under the banner of "Beidou" are actually developing their own. In this lack of uniform standards and regulation of equipment failure is not surprising. Each business algorithm, performance will be different, so it is necessary for the relevant departments to regularly conduct random checks on the products of enterprises.
In December 2020, the Ministry of Transportation issued the "Notice on the Announcement of 2020 Annual Road Transportation Vehicles Beidou Navigation Vehicle-mounted Terminal and Electronic Non-stop Toll Collection Equipment Product Quality Supervision and Random Inspection Results," which shows that: in Beijing, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Fujian, Henan, Shandong, Guangdong, Shaanxi 8 provinces (cities) to take 27 enterprises to produce 30 batches of products to ultimately determine the qualified 19 samples, 8 unqualified samples. The sampling pass rate was 70.4%. Prior to this, the sampling pass rate from 2014 to 2018 was 82%, 86%, 80.6%, 94.1% and 97.6% respectively.
Under the one-size-fits-all policy requirement BeiDou positioning equipment features are one-size-fits-all, so from time to time in the state of low-priced competition, there are cases of substandard products. Even if a certain equipment enterprise produces intelligent equipment that allows drivers to have so little sense of access, it is difficult to promote. Because all we want is to meet the regulation can, as for the quality of the product in fact, not many people really care. These devices not only lack uniform standards and regulation in terms of quality, but also lack uniform standards in terms of price. Currently, these devices are sold online for anywhere from one to two hundred to five to six thousand dollars.
Since there are as many as 2,000 or more manufacturers of these devices across the country, it is clear that the threshold for production of these devices is not very high. Personally, I estimate that the cost of this equipment may be as little as three or four hundred dollars at best. However, in some areas of this industry is suspected of monopoly, so in fact, large truck drivers unified purchase will be more expensive. There are various qualifications required to enter the industry: usually several hundred thousand dollars for a set. In fact, it can also be attached to the name of other companies to become a branch of the form of business. Therefore, there are a lot of such dependent companies, there is also a lack of service.