China’s Beidou global navigation and positioning system has completed the deployment of its constellation, which is officially referred to as another milestone in China’s “space program. However, a truck driver in Hebei recently died after swallowing a pesticide because he couldn’t face a fine due to a Beidou “drop”, and experts believe that China’s Beidou system still has a long way to go with the U.S. GPS system.
On June 23 last year, China successfully launched the last satellite in the country’s Beidou-3 network, completing the deployment of its Beidou Global Navigation and Positioning System (GPS) constellation. However, the operational capability of Beidou GPS remains in question. Chinese civilian truck drivers, among others, have often complained that their in-vehicle Beidou positioning often “drops out”.
According to mainland media reports, on April 5, Jin Deqiang, a truck driver from Hebei Province, was driving from Chengde to an over-limit checkpoint in the Fengrun District of Tangshan City when his Beidou positioning system “dropped out” and he was detained and fined 2,000 yuan. Jin Deqiang thought that it was not the driver’s fault that the Beidou positioning system was offline, and the driver would not know whether the system was offline or not, so he could not accept the punishment. Jin Deqiang and the staff bargaining ineffective, so swallowed pesticide and died. The incident sparked a lot of discussion among netizens, and the public held injustice for the deceased.
Hebei truck driver Jin Deqiang driving the Beida “dropped” truck. (Web Image)
Mr. Fang, a network expert familiar with the BeiDou positioning system, said in an interview with Radio Free Asia on Thursday (April 8) that there might be problems with the ground-based transmitting and receiving modules of BeiDou satellites, but it was impossible to tell whether it was a technical failure or the quality of the modules: “The satellite navigation system first needs a transmitting and receiving module, and since satellites need a lot of ground data for calculations in order to measure the position of an object on the ground. If the transmission capability is not up to par, it leads to dropouts. Also its receiving module receives the signal inaccurately, which still produces dropouts.”
China has invested $10 billion to ensure the stability of Beidou signals
Currently, all 30 satellites of the Beidou system are in place, allowing it to stand alongside the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS), Russia’s GLONASS and the European Union’s Galileo global satellite navigation system (European Union’s Galileo). According to foreign media reports, China has spent $10 billion on the project to secure China’s military communications network and prevent accidental information outages.
Some truck drivers complained online about Beidou’s “dropped connections,” which already happened in 2017, and such complaints have not diminished going into 2020. Mr. Fang, a network expert, said the key lies in the lack of effective control over the quality of Chinese products: “For the control of the process, the absence of this link leads to its entire quality system does not meet the requirements, so the quality of each product is not the same. The accuracy of GPS positioning in the United States can reach 5 meters, and I’m afraid that Beidou can’t reach this accuracy.”
Left: A driver complained that the Beidou positioning system was installed and soon “broke”. Right: The suicide note of the deceased Jin Deqiang. (Web screenshot)
Beidou quality affects air traffic safety
Beidou GPS is mainly used for navigation of Chinese military equipment, such as warplanes, warships and missiles. If there are errors in the positioning data, Mr. Fang believes the consequences are unimaginable: “The consequences are so serious that two planes colliding in the sky could happen, including the possibility that one of its systems is incompatible with the other, and that two units could fire at each other.”
Mr. Shen, a scholar from Jiangxi, said that the role of the Beidou positioning system is exaggerated: “The so-called scientific and technological achievements are often used as propaganda for the country to lull the people inside the walls. If there is a real war, I don’t know how many soldiers will die and how many of our own people, including civilians, will be injured by mistake.”
In order not to rely on the U.S. GPS system, China developed its own for nearly two decades and finally established the Beidou all-positioning system. Some scholars believe that it is unlikely that China will completely replace the GPS system in the next ten to twenty years. Mr. Song, a scholar from Zhengzhou, Henan Province, China, said to the station, “Beidou is a system project, and its reliability lies in the reliability of each link, such as the quality of the satellite, its software, whether its receiving equipment guarantees operation, and whether management and maintenance are in place. From this incident, which concerns the safety of thousands of trucks on the road, it is surprising that it has repeatedly fallen off the line, so it is conceivable that its application in other fields is also unreliable.”
Mr. Cai, a current affairs commentator who has always been conservative about China’s new technology, told the station that the U.S. GPS positioning system is mature and stable, and China’s Beidou positioning system is an autonomous technology added on top of GPS: “It is also designed to take into account the needs of the so-called war and military needs, because of the fear of being stuck by the GPS system and having inaccurate positioning. But I am sad that this driver died because he was fined 2,000 yuan, which is a very sad thing.”
After the incident, Hebei authorities said they were investigating the cause and could not determine the real reason for the Beidou drop for the time being.
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