'Smart courier' helps BeiDou gain ground on GPS
Visitors look at an exhibit at the 2018 Shanghai Navigation Industry and Technology Development Forum on December 21.
US-owned GPS is synonymous with navigation and positioning, but China’s BeiDou navigation satellite system has started to give the global colossus a run for its money.
By the end of 2020, 35 BeiDou satellites will cover almost the entire globe.
Originally designed for military use, BeiDou has been gradually chipping away at the GPS market share and is widely used in transportation, environmental monitoring and other fields, with the biggest customers including local express delivery giants.
At the 2018 Shanghai Navigation Industry and Technology Development Forum it was announced that delivery companies STO, YTO, ZTO, Yunda and SF will use BeiDou services, now accurate to less than 1 meter. The system can tell which lane a vehicle is driving on, instead of merely which road. It can navigate to a designated parking site, instead of just the factory gate.
The service will be integrated to an ambitious smart courier program, said Cao Chong, chief of Shanghai BeiDou Research Institute.
Data such as where a truck is, what it is carrying and when it arrives is collected and shared with everyone involved in the process.
“It will help courier companies to make better arrangements and cut their costs,” said Cao.
According to a blue paper released last Friday, crossover and integration are two keywords in the development of navigation and positioning.
“It will be combined with robotics technology, artificial intelligence and the smart city program,” said Yang Changfeng, chief designer of the China Satellite Navigation Office.
Cao pointed out the biggest challenge is to make the service adapt to three dimensions. Currently, the service cannot tell whether a vehicle is on the ground or an elevated road or whether a person is on the first or second floor.
