File photo of a model of the Beidou Satellite Navigation System.Photo:Xinhua

 
China's BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS), which has played a dominant role in the domestic navigation sector, has become a new economic and social driver as the system is widely adopted in core sectors ranging from shipping to agriculture, the China Satellite Navigation System Management Office said. 

The BDS is also going global as more cooperation has taken place, with the technology and its applications having stood the test of time.

As BDS widens and deepens its large-scale application, a more ubiquitous, integrated and intelligent national comprehensive space-time system will be established with the next-generation BDS as the core by 2035, providing unified benchmarks, seamless coverage, and safe, reliable, convenient and efficient positioning, navigation and timing services, according to a report that the Global Times received from the China Satellite Navigation System Management Office.

Since the BeiDou-3 system, which provides quality communications service for global users, launched in 2020, the system has operated smoothly, gaining a reputation for features such as high precision and short messages, which have been fully verified.

More than 7.9 million road operating vehicles, over 47,000 ships and up to 40,000 postal and express vehicles are using the BeiDou system nationwide.

Nearly 8,000 BeiDou terminals of various types have been installed and promoted in the railway field, the office said.

In agriculture, BeiDou has particularly shone, as there are more than 100,000 agricultural machines using the autonomous driving system, covering a wide range of activities such as plowing, transplanting, sowing, plant protection and harvesting.

The navigation system has also played a part in the booming bike-sharing service in China, where the number of shared bicycles equipped with domestic BeiDou high-precision positioning chips exceeds 5 million, covering more than 450 cities, the Global Times learned.


As BeiDou has achieved the dominant position in the field of domestic navigation maps, a mobile phone function supporting BeiDou short messages has been released.

In September 2022, Chinese technology company Huawei unveiled its new flagship smartphone, which is connected to the BeiDou satellite navigation system, allowing users to send short messages even when there is no communication signal on the ground, becoming the world's first smartphone directly connected to satellites. 

The BDS is fully empowering all walks of life and becoming an important engine to promote economic and social development, experts said.

China's State Council Information Office published a white paper titled "China's BeiDou Navigation Satellite System in the New Era" on November 4, 2022, laying out how China plans to refine the system by improving its operating management, promoting the sustainable development of BDS-based applications, and upgrading its governance in the coming years.

In the white paper, it said that BDS is dedicated to the world, and China will step up international cooperation for better compatibility and interoperability between BDS and other navigation satellite systems.

More international cooperation has taken place as other countries see greater potential and reliability in BeiDou in promoting economic and social development.

In early December 2022, the Chinese Foreign Ministry issued a report on China-Arab cooperation in the new era, in which the fruitful results of cooperation with Arab countries in the field of satellite navigation were noted.