Author: Deng Zhongliang
The high-precision positioning service up to dynamic centimeter level is not only a unique skill of the Beidou satellite navigation system, but it has also gradually evolved towards universality and standardization at the industrial application level, and has extended to the emerging industries of spatiotemporal intelligence.
On May 17, when the Long March 3B carrier rocket successfully launched the 56th navigation satellite of the Beidou system, the development of the Beidou system entered a new stage.
This is the first backup satellite of the Beidou-3 global satellite navigation system. It is also the first launch since the Beidou-3 system officially launched global service in 2020. It lays the foundation for some new technologies and new products corresponding to the construction of the next generation national comprehensive positioning, navigation and timing system. Technical basics and provide advancement. This satellite can support broadcasting correction information for more systems, greatly improving high-precision positioning services.
"Precise time and space"
Support the vigorous development of the digital economy
Building a manufacturing power has become a major development strategy for our country. As a result, smart manufacturing has become an important task for current development. The development of my country's manufacturing industry will be redefined by smart manufacturing: first, advanced communication means; second, real-time calculation; third, high-precision spatio-temporal information support; and fourth, intelligent control. Therefore, the era of high-precision spatio-temporal benchmarks and transparency of the interconnection of all things has arrived. Perception is everywhere and networks are everywhere.
Accurate spatiotemporal benchmarks will empower smart manufacturing and the new industrial revolution, including full life processes such as factory intelligence, workshop intelligence, equipment intelligence, and product intelligence. Smart manufacturing relies on integrated processing of accurate time and space, comprehensive perception, low-latency and highly reliable communication, and deep intelligence. Since its development in the 1970s, the Industrial Internet has become one of the core applications of 5G and the core information infrastructure of new infrastructure. In the future, 80% of 5G application scenarios will be in the industrial Internet. It is expected that by the end of 2023, the output value of the industrial Internet will exceed one trillion yuan.
High-precision spatio-temporal information is of great significance to the information security construction of the industrial Internet. With the industrial Internet, people can easily think of industrial big data. Compared with previous big data, industrial big data has two more dimensions: one is visibility and the other is value. Using spatiotemporal information as the source of industrial big data can solve the needs of continuity, accuracy, correlation, logic, and visibility of big data. High-precision spatio-temporal information is also the key foundation for deep mining of industrial big data. More than 90% of industrial big data use spatio-temporal benchmarks as components of data management.
However, current spatial data accuracy is insufficient, leading to uncertainty in data mining. By integrating precise spatiotemporal information, leading issues in industrial big data can be effectively solved. At the same time, high-precision spatio-temporal information is also an important means to enhance the value of industrial big data. Some people comment on the "80/20 rule" in the field of industrial big data, that is, 20% of small data has a value density of 80%, while 80% of industrial big data has a value density of only 20%. Therefore, spatio-temporal correlation multi-dimensional data mining can effectively solve the low-value problems in industrial big data and improve the ability to ensure major production safety.
Our country is the world's largest industrial producer. In the past, production safety assurance was based on traditional passive responses. In the future, it needs to develop into precise all-time and space-time active defense. Developed countries attach great importance to major production safety guarantees, and safety guarantees throughout the entire process are an important challenge facing the manufacturing and production fields. High-precision spatio-temporal information enables seamless high-security communications, high-precision target perception, and intelligent risk assessment, including fast and reliable disposal and rescue.
Communication and navigation go hand in hand
Requires integration of 5G and Beidou
When talking about space-time information, it is easy to think of the world’s four major satellite navigation systems. On July 31, 2020, my country announced the launch of global Beidou navigation services. The technical routes of the world's four major satellite navigation systems are basically the same. To develop global services, they will face new competition in the market. Competition requires new starting points, so how to seize the global market has become an important goal.
According to analysis, satellite navigation can achieve global coverage at a very small cost, but it cannot achieve positioning and navigation in indoor, urban canyons, and underground environments. It is also easily susceptible to signal interference and deception, and cannot achieve safe and reliable positioning. Therefore, the development of reliable positioning has become a global research hotspot, and there is an urgent need to develop an independent space-time system to form positioning and navigation capabilities that do not rely on satellite navigation systems.
The application goal of 5G is: information comes at your fingertips and everything is within reach. Obviously, this requires high-precision spatio-temporal information support. Is it possible to solve the problem of high-definition positioning in semi-shielded and shielded spaces through wireless networks, and effectively combine it with satellite navigation systems to solve seamless high-precision positioning? my country proposed the "Xihe Plan" in 2006 to support the application of Beidou, and at the same time endow Communication network can achieve high-precision positioning.
However, the combination of communication and navigation faces challenges in three aspects. First, the ground environment is complex. Can accurate measurement and positioning be achieved based on wireless communication networks? Second, a single communication network will have blind spots. How to solve the problem of reliable and robust positioning? Third, application service business requirements are diverse and have different levels of accuracy. The requirements are different. Monitoring objects include people, machines, and objects. Can ubiquitous intelligent service support capabilities be achieved? With the support of major national special projects and the industrial development plan of the National Development and Reform Commission, the author led the team to complete the high-precision monitoring of a single wireless network. , to heterogeneous multi-network multi-source collaboration and high reliability, to research on intelligent positioning and navigation integrating space and earth, breaking through theoretical methods and a number of key technologies, and successfully developing equipment and carrying out a series of applications.
Based on more than 20 years of research, the author's team has constructed a theoretical method and technical system for wireless communication networks. In terms of high-precision points in a single wireless network, we innovatively proposed the "embedded signal-noise" phase positioning method and the wireless virtual grid differential positioning theoretical method. In the study of heterogeneous multi-network multi-source collaborative high-reliability and high-positioning methods, we have overcome the problems of multi-network multi-source random access and online synchronization, and established an optimal positioning optimization related model based on spatio-temporal self-consistency. In terms of universal location services integrating space and ground, we are the first to solve the deep integration of space and ground positioning architecture and key technologies for satellites and ground communication networks. At the same time, by using key technologies such as communication network equipment to enhance satellite positioning differential enhancement and reconfigurability, positioning accuracy has reached the international leading level.
In the 5G era, positioning performance will be improved from the original meter level to decimeter and centimeter levels, thus promoting my country's wireless communication network technology to become a world leader. In terms of applications, for production safety assurance, innovative breakthroughs have been made in a series of key technologies such as full network coverage, full time and space positioning perception, accurate assessment of safety hazards and risks, precise prevention and control, and high-reliability rescue, thereby realizing the transition from passive impact response to production safety assurance. Active defense across. The author's team has developed major production safety assurance system equipment and implemented integrated applications, providing significant support to many industries such as chemical industry, energy, smelting, and security. It takes the lead in serving the safety production and supervision of very large chemical enterprises at home and abroad, realizing the systematic and large-scale application of spatial location services in large enterprises from scratch, and solving two key and one major problems in chemical industry parks.
Through research, it is found that communication networks can enable high-precision positioning awareness service capabilities. Through the efficient integration of Beidou and 5G, the problem of high-precision positioning caused by blocked satellite signals is solved. Through early technological breakthroughs, 5G's positioning performance is getting closer and closer to satellite positioning performance, and its signal coverage is more comprehensive, thus solving the problem of satellite signal blind spot positioning. The integration of Beidou and 5G can further improve location service accuracy and service reliability.
On the basis of previous research, the author's team took the lead in proposing the first international standard for 5G high-precision positioning, which played an important role in my country's seizing the commanding heights of 5G positioning.
The journey is long and never ending
Only through struggle can we overcome obstacles
The organic integration of Beidou and 5G can enhance each other, using Beidou to provide new support for 5G service businesses, and at the same time using 5G to expand Beidou application service capabilities, thus forming a national comprehensive positioning, navigation and timing system, which has become an important construction content of the current major national projects. . The construction of a national comprehensive positioning, navigation and timing system can provide high-precision, high-reliability, and high-possibility location services in the entire airspace, all-time domain, and all-frequency domain.
Before 2035, my country will build a national comprehensive positioning, navigation and timing system with the Beidou system as the core that is more ubiquitous, more integrated, and more intelligent, providing core support for future intelligent and unmanned development. By then, users can enjoy full coverage, highly reliable navigation, positioning and timing services from indoors to outdoors, from deep sea to deep space. The Beidou satellite navigation system will better serve the world and benefit mankind.
In the future, market demand for positioning, navigation, timing technology and comprehensive location services will gradually transform into demand for spatio-temporal information collection and services. This will redefine the market and form a new economic form focused on the acquisition, processing and service of spatio-temporal information, which will surely become an important part of the digital economy.
The integration of the Beidou satellite navigation system with the mobile Internet has brought about tremendous changes in the industrial chain, user types and application scenarios, further expanded the scope of the national comprehensive positioning, navigation and timing system and space-time service industry, and significantly changed the industrial ecology.
Ecological harmony, the interconnection between humans and ecology, and the positioning of various biological goals will become an important foundation for the development of the social environment. The demand for unmanned, intelligent and higher safety is an important trend in the development of the manufacturing industry in the future. To ensure the healthy development of manufacturing industrialization, standards, benchmarks and regulations are indispensable and important guarantee conditions.
Thirty years ago, the first star was launched into space, and now, Beidou benefits the whole world. Scientific researchers must uphold the Beidou spirit of the new era of "independent innovation, openness and integration, unity and pursuit of excellence", so that "Beidou and 5G" become an important cornerstone of time and space that empowers economic and social development, and become a technology that serves people's livelihood and well-being and contributes to a better life. strength.
(The author is an academician of the International Eurasian Academy of Sciences, director of the National Engineering Laboratory for Disaster Preparedness Technology, and a professor of Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications)