China sees bright vista ahead in satellite navigation for civil use market

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, November 04, 2003

China sees bright vista ahead in satellite navigation for civil use market

The dream of Chinese drivers for an easy tour around will come true by dint of electronic navigation map in a few years to come. Relying on the satellite navigation positioning system drivers can easily reach their destinations according to the prompt of the system and will never lose their ways.

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Relying on the satellite navigation positioning system drivers can easily reach their destinations according to the prompt of the system and will never lose their ways. This is made known by Li Lei, head of the Software Research Institute of CAS and concurrently deputy-director with the application and design and integrated engineering research center of national satellite navigation system at the "Forum on Informationization and Road for New Type of Industrialization" held in Tianjin.

The application of satellite navigation refers to the positioning, guiding and controlling of all objects by exploiting the information provided by the satellite system as to their positions, speeds and the time, etc.. As one of the eight wireless industries of the world and one of the three global information industries with the fastest development the satellite navigation system can be extensively used in the following fields of agriculture, environment monitoring and examination, mechanic cybernation, tourism exploration and sea navigation as well as aeronautic and astronautic flight.

The swift development of China's auto-industry and the acquirement of the sponsorship for Beijing Olympic Games 2008 and Shanghai Expo'2010 by China have effected a great demand for the civil use of the satellite navigation system in the market, holds Li Lei.

As revealed in the statistics of Ministry of Communications China has at present possessed some 4.3 million trucks, 1.7 million passenger coaches and over 900,000 boats and ships which need to be installed with satellite navigation system and in the meanwhile it witnesses a speedy increase for the system-installation on the new cars and the auto-demand in China will reach 5.5 million by 2005. In a few years time, the needs of satellite navigation system on domestic vehicles will see a speedy growth of over 20 percent annually. For the moment, the Chinese government is making great efforts for promoting the civil use of the satellite guiding and positioning system. As learned recently, with the approval of the State Council and the Central Military Commission the North Star (Plough) Brand Satellite Navigation System of China's own intellectual property rights will soon be put into civil use. According to Li Lei, as compared to the single-way information transmission of the U.S. GPS system the superiority of the North Star lies in its dual-way short-news transmission, with which the central station can get in touch with all the terminals at once. This is of great importance for the monitoring and controlling, manoeuvring of vehicles and the rescuing of ships on waters and so it is very good for enterprises engaged in goods-flow, railway transportation, vessel-shipment and long-distance truck transports to use it.

The first version of auto-self-guiding electronic map brought out by China with its own intellectual property rights and in line with the auto-industry standard and the law of China was put into the market in October 2002. And it is foreseeable that the system will be able to cover the majority of the regions in China by 2005.

In last October, with an assets investment of over RMB 155 million yuan, the National Satellite Navigation Application System and Integrated Engineering Research Center was formally set up. It is responsible for working out the standard for the domestic satellite navigation market and the relevant R & D work and in the meanwhile efforts will be made to popularize the civil use of the satellite navigation industry in China.

As estimated the market scale for the application of satellite navigation in China will exceed an amount of RMB 10b yuan, the applicable product value of the satellite system to step over RMB 8b yuan and the output value for the system operation service to surpass RMB 2b yuan by the year of 2005.

Like the development of the Internet in China the research and application of the Chinese satellite navigation system by the superiority of gaining mastery from late development will go ahead by leaps and bounds as promoted by great potentials in the market.

By People's Daily Online staff R. L. Han

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