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BeiDou Future and Evolutions
| COMPASS | |
|---|---|
| Title | BeiDou Future and Evolutions |
| Edited by | GMV |
| Level | Basic |
| Year of Publication | 2011 |
The Compass Navigation Satellite System (CNSS), also named BeiDou-2,[1] is China’s second-generation satellite navigation system that will be capable of providing positioning, navigation, and timing services to users on a continuous worldwide basis[1][2] and it is expected to reach full operational capability by 2020.
COMPASS Roadmap
The COMPASS system is planned to be developed and deployed in three phases[3]:
- Phase 1 (2003+)
Phase 1 consists of an experimental regional navigation system, BeiDou-1, which provided active navigation service.
- Phase 2 (2012+)
BeiDou-2 consists of a reduced satellite constellation and provides open service over China. This phase aims at deploying a system with passive positioning and timing capability over a regional area.
- Phase 3 (2020+)
By 2020, COMPASS would reach full operational capability with a Walker constellation of 27 MEOs plus 5 GEOs and the existing 3 IGSOs satellites of the regional system[4]. COMPASS would provide global navigation services, similarly to the GPS, GLONASS or Galileo systems.[1]
COMPASS Status
By December 2011, the COMPASS system went into operation on a trial basis providing initial passive positioning navigation and timing services for the whole Asia-Pacific region with a constellation of 10 satellites (5 GEO satellites and 5 IGSO satellites)[5][6] and the Initial Operational Service was declared officially available.
During 2012, one additional GEO and two MEO satellites were launched in February and April respectively. Two more launches are expected during 2012 as reported in the Munich Summit in March 2012 in order to expand service area (to Asian-Pacific users) and improve service performance (positioning accuracy better than 10 meters) with a 5 GEO + 5 IGSO + 4 MEO constellation.
COMPASS General Services
The future COMPASS is expected to support two different kind of general services: RDSS and RNSS.
In the Radio Determination Satellite Service (RDSS) , the user position is computed by a ground station using the round trip time of signals exchanged via GEO satellite. The RDSS Long term feature further includes[7]:
- Short message communication (guaranteeing backward compatibility with BeiDou-1)
- Large volume message communication
- Information connection
- Extended coverage
The Radio Navigation Satellite Service (RNSS) is very similar to that provided by GPS and Galileo and is designed to achieve similar performances.
International Context
The Chinese Government considers satellite navigation as strategic in the new generation information technology, and encourages international cooperation to ensure compatibility and interoperability with other navigation systems[8].
Notes
References
- ^ a b c Compass Satellite Navigation System (Beidou), on Sinodefence.com, updated on August 6th, 2011.
- ^ COMPASS Navigation system in Wikipedia
- ^ BeiDou web site
- ^ Jun Shen, COMPASS/Beidou-China’s GNSS, BNStarNavigation Technology & System, Inc., Rome, June 11th, 2009
- ^ Satellite navigation system launched, China Daily Europe, December 2011.
- ^ Compass Navigation System in Wikipedia
- ^ "Preliminary Results of GPS/Compass Integrated Positioning and Navigation", presented in the COMPASS Workshop held during the ION GNSS 2011 Conference.
- ^ China Satellite Navigation Office, Development of BeiDou Navigation Satellite System, Munich Satellite Navigation Summit, 2011