Tian Miao on BeiDou Navigation Satellite System and its global application

Interview Series: Community with a Shared Future for Mankind

EP08: Tian Miao on BeiDou Navigation Satellite System and its global application

The BeiDou Navigation Satellite System, also known as BDS, is a first-class navigation satellite system that developed by China and dedicated to the world. Entering the new era, BDS has been applied worldwide, integrated with global infrastructure, and introduced to mass markets, empowering industries and profoundly changing people’s lives and the way they work. Through BDS, Chinese wisdom and strength are contributed to making navigation satellite systems better serve the world and benefit humanity.

Today, we are honored to have Ms. Tian Miao, Senior Engineer at the International Cooperation Center of China Satellite Navigation Office, to join our discussion on BDS and its global application.

Q1: Let’s start the interview with a quick question. How long have you been a member of the BDS team? What are your responsibilities in the team?

Tian Miao: I have been engaged in the BDS team for more than ten years, and my responsibilities include carrying out exchanges and interactions with foreign partners, both bilaterally and multilaterally.

Q2: Can you give us a brief introduction of the current status of BDS?

Tian Miao: BDS was officially commissioned in 2020. Currently, it has emerged in the applications of different sectors and industries. In China, the output value has developed by more than 16% every year. And it has been widely applied in the fields like transportation, agriculture, electricity and etc. In overseas market, the BDS products and services have served more than 120 countries, and have been widely applied in the mass markets as well.

Q3: Let's back up a bit. Why did China develop BDS in the first place? What do you think its goal is, and how it’s achieving so?

Tian Miao: Dating back to 1980s, China decided to develop our own navigation satellite system. In the first place, China decided to build up BDS to satisfy the requirements of national security, economic and social development.

While we are aiming to build BDS not only to serve for China, but also serving the world. BDS has adopted a three-step strategy. In 2000, BDS-1 has been completed to serve China. In 2012, BDS-2 was commissioned to provide services for the Asian Pacific region. As for BDS-3, it was officially commissioned in 2020, and to provide services for all global users.

Q4: Speaking of the global services, could you tell us what types of services can BDS and its related products provide to other countries? What changes will it bring to global users?

Tian Miao: BDS can provide three types of global services, including the positioning, navigation and timing services, the short message communication services, as well as the international search and rescue services. The BDS short message communication services have benefit a lot previously in the earthquake in Nepal. China has distributed our rescue team there, and with the BDS-enabled devices, our rescue team can get the location of the people in need. Recently, Chinese industries have also exported our high precision products overseas. Right now, more than half of the countries all around the world have benefit a lot by our BDS-enabled devices products.

Q5: Could you tell us what is the significance of BDS to China and the world?

Tian Miao: As for China, BDS has changed people’s lives and the way they work. In the sectors of economic and social development, many industries have increased their output value, and people’s lives have been significantly changed by the BDS-enabled devices. As for the world, China has developed a path with our own features, which means to develop phase by phase, and also to develop from regional services to global services. Our approach has fulfilled the development path as for the international GNSS (General Navigation Satellite Service) community.