oneNav announced the commercial availability of its pureL5 GNSS digital IP core, which directly acquire and track L5 signals from GPS, Galileo, BeiDou, QZSS and GLONASS without any L1 aiding.

This eliminates the entire L1 RF chain, saves PCB area and simplifies the RF front end and antenna subsystem in smartphones, wearables and trackers.

The pureL5 digital IP core’s massively parallel array processor searches the entire 1 millisecond L5 code space in parallel, delivering 1 second TTFFs. The pureL5 digital IP core is only 0.28mm2 in the 3nm semiconductor process, and consumes only 4.7mW of power in 1Hz tracking mode.

oneNav has delivered the pureL5 digital IP core RTL to its first SOC customer. IP core RTL verification and physical implementation are complete, and oneNav’s SOC licensee will tape out in Q1, 2022. The pureL5 digital IP core RTL is available for customer licensing and shipment now.

According to the company, pureL5 GNSS delivers all the benefits of high performance, next-generation L5 in a single frequency L5 receiver. With a smaller footprint than L1+L5 hybrids, it simplifies implementation in highly space-constrained devices like 5G smartphones and wearables, while lowering BOM cost and simplifying the RF front end and antenna subsystem.

It directly acquires L5/E5/B2 with 1 second TTFF and less software complexity, simplifying RF coexistence engineering. The company said this improves interference resiliency. The scalable IP signal processing core is semiconductor process node independent

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Russian space agency Roscosmos and the Chinese Satellite Navigation System Commission have agreed to a joint roadmap on cooperation for 2021-2025.

The strategy includes plans for the development of navigational systems — Russia’s GLONASS and China’s BeiDou — through boosting their compatibility and complementarity, as well as placement of ground-based measuring sites on the territory of both states.

The roadmap entails plans for monitoring and evaluation of the features of GNSS and the joint application of navigation technologies to promote the socio-economic development of Russia and China, Roscosmos added.

In 2018, Russia and China reached an agreement to cooperate on the use of their GNSS for peaceful purposes. The accord was ratified the following year.

In mid-September, Roscosmos unveiled its plans to start installing GLONASS ground stations across China’s Shanghai, Urumqi, and Changchun regions by the end of this year. China is expected to place its BeiDou stations in the Russian cities of Obninsk, Irkutsk, and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy.

Image: from Compass Status presentation: http://www.filasinternational.eu/sidereus-project/pdf/02.pdf

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[Image courtesy China Daily.]

Researchers at the Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics in the northeastern province of Jilin developed a shape-changing mirror telescope that it at the heart of the method. It could enable a satellite to beam data to the ground or to another satellite at several gigabytes per second, rather than kilobytes by radio frequency. BeiDou’s fastest communication performance in the experiment is classified.

In a competing but lagging development, the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced on November 29 that a December 4 launch of an experimental satellite will lead to similar experiments, testing data transmission via laser beam at 2.8GB per second. This comes after a two-year delay in the project.

BeiDou and all other GNSS satellites normally inter-communicate by radio signal, which can transmit only short text messages because of limited bandwidth. With lasers, a space network could transmit data a million times faster. Laser communication offers wider bandwidth, is less vulnerable to cyber-espionage, and uses lighter, more compact technology.

A ground station for laser communication is usually a fixed facility with sophisticated devices including a large telescope, a beam tracking and locking unit, and equipment for signal processing. However, the Changchun Institute scientists and engineers packed reception equipment into a car for mobile deployment.

Laser-beam bandwidth can reach one terabyte (1,000GB) per second. Lasers are also less susceptible to being tapped by a third party, and more difficult to jam during electronic warfare than microwaves. A traditional communication satellite is usually bulky, because it requires huge antennas and lots of power to generate and transmit large numbers of radio signals. Laser devices are smaller and lighter, potentially allowing satellites built mainly for other purposes to establish high-speed communication with one another or to the ground, according to Chinese news agency reportage.

Since the 1960s, programs in the U.S., Japan and Europe have sought to develop a laser communication satellite but failed to solve some of the practical problems involved. One of these is presented by the atmosphere: air molecules can absorb or reflect light, so that too few light particles reach their destination. Turbulence can also distort or shake the laser beams so that the light signals became too blurry to read, especially in urban areas with intense human activity. The Chinese researchers in Shenyang have reportedly developed a telescope mirror that can change shape with an electric charge, to reduce the blurring effect caused by air turbulence.

Mozi, the world’s first quantum satellite, reached a download speed of 5.1GB per second in 2016 using laser equipment. Subsequently, Chinese space laboratory Tiangong 2 conducted the world’s first space-ground laser communication in daytime, overcoming another major obstacle in practical application. In 2019, a Chinese laser ground station downloaded data from a satellite at 10GB per second.

NASA’s Laser Communications Relay Demonstration

As space missions generate and collect more data, the need for enhanced communications capabilities has become pressing. Optical communications will increase bandwidth by 10 to 100 times over radio frequency systems, according to NASA statements. Additionally, optical communications provides decreased size, weight, and power requirements, for less drain on spacecraft batteries.

The Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD) payload includes two optical modules, which generate the infrared lasers that transmit data to and from Earth. The LCRD payload will be ride onboard the U.S. Department of Defense’s Space Test Program Satellite 6 (STPSat-6), scheduled for launch on December 4. LCRD will send test data to and from its ground stations.

Eventually, other missions in space will send their data to LCRD, which will then relay the data down to designated ground stations on Earth. LCRD creates a continuous path for data flowing from missions in space to ground stations on Earth, making a complete end-to-end system. Additionally, LCRD’s ability to both send and receive data from missions and the ground stations makes the system two-way.

Optical signals cannot penetrate cloud coverage, so NASA must build a system flexible enough to avoid interruptions due to weather. LCRD will transmit data received from missions to two ground stations, located in Table Mountain, California, and Haleakalā, Hawaii. These locations were chosen for their minimal cloud coverage. LCRD will test different cloud coverage scenarios, gathering valuable information about the flexibility of optical communications.

Future missions that decide to use optical communications could potentially use LCRD as their relay. One of LCRD’s first operational users will be the Integrated LCRD Low-Earth Orbit User Modem and Amplifier Terminal (ILLUMA-T), a payload that will soon reach the International Space Station. The terminal will receive high-resolution science data from experiments and instruments onboard the ISS and transfer the data to LCRD, which will then transmit it to a ground station, relaying on to mission operation centers and scientists.

In January 2020, the LCRD flight payload was delivered to Northrop Grumman’s facility in Sterling, Virginia, for integration onto STPSat-6. Throughout the development process, the NASA LCRD team worked closely with the Space Force as well as commercial partners like Northrop Grumman and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Lincoln Laboratory.

With LCRD relaying data for ILLUMA-T, this will be the first operational optical communications system for human spaceflight. ILLUMA-T will send data to LCRD at rates of 1.2 gigabits per second over optical links, allowing for more high-resolution experiment data to be transmitted back to Earth.

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CSNO chairman He Yubin. said, “ China will join hands with Africa to promote BeiDou-based services on the continent to foster local industries and businesses and help to create more jobs and reduce poverty.”  CSNO committed to exchanges and training of African personnel to facilitate countries’ efforts to grow their space capabilities.

Mahama Ouedraogo, director of human resources, science and technology with the African Union Commission, stated that Beidou will become a significant tool in Africa’s development, providing new momentum for local economies.

“Beidou has huge potential in at least ten fields such as road transportation, railway management, agriculture, land mapping and survey, urban construction as well as wildlife protection. As a result, many African enterprises have benefited from their use of Beidou-based products or services,” said Yang Dongpeng, a senior CSNO researcher.

This story based on reportage by Mustapha Iderawumi in Space in Africa.

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“We have a reciprocal process: we need to place GLONASS stations in China, and they are over here (in Russia). Now we have started active work. I hope that the installation will begin this year. We will make every effort for this,” Saveliev said.

In 2018, the two countries reached an agreement to cooperate on the use of their respective GNSS for peaceful purposes, with the document ratified the next year. China will install BeiDou ground monitoring stations across Russia.

The Precision Instrument-Making Systems research and production corporation, part of the state space corporation Roscosmos, also plans to place GLONASS monitoring stations in Brazil, China, Indonesia, India and Angola, the corporation said.

“In the near future another six non-request measuring stations are to be placed abroad: two in Brazil (Belem and Colorado de Oeste), one in China (Shanghai), one in Indonesia (Bukittinggi, West Sumatra), one in India (Bangalore) and one in Angola (Luanda),” the corporation said.

Negotiations with foreign partners have been held and on-site reconnaissance work carried out and contracts are being coordinated. “All contracts for deploying and operating the equipment were signed with Brazil back in 2020. All permissions to take the equipment out of Russia were obtained, too,” the corporation said. Last year Russian specialists were unable to go to Brazil for assembling the equipment due to the pandemic. The deployment work was postponed till 2021-2022, when the epidemiological situation gets back to normal.

The equipment from Precision Instrument-Making Systems is meant for enhancing the accuracy and improving other parameters of the system GLONASS.

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The technology enables two-way communication on mobile phones in areas not covered by ordinary mobile communication signals or when base stations are damaged, which proves useful during earthquake relief, offshore fishing and emergency communication.

“Short message service needed a larger satellite terminal such as maritime satellite phone. But the enhanced version’s ‘low power consumption’ feature enables mobile phones to send emergency messages through BeiDou satellites even without ground mobile communication signals,” said Li Jingyuan, director of the BeiDou short message team at National University of Defense Technology (NUDT).

“The information transmission rate of the enhanced version has increased 10 times, which means pictures and voice messages can be sent out quickly,” Li added.

At the summit, NUDT, the people’s government of Hunan and China Electronics Corporation signed an industrial cooperation agreement to further expand short message service to low-orbit satellite users, and make the service play a role in global satellite Internet of Things, international life rescue, global emergency communication and other industrial applications.

[Photo: Exhibition floor of the first International Summit on BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) Applications, in Changsha, central China’s Hunan Province. (Photo/Xinhua)]

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Yang Jun, deputy director of  the office, made the statement during the 12th China Satellite Navigation Conference held in Nanchang, capital of east China’s Jiangxi Province. The conference website is here.

China has fostered a complete and independent industrial chain for developing BDS and has exported BDS-powered products to more than 120 countries and regions, Yang said. The agency’s measurements of system performance in the first half of this year showed a signal-in-space accuracy of less than 0.5 meters.
More than 7 million commercial vehicles, about 36,300 postal and delivery vehicles, and 350 aircraft in China have been equipped with BDS.

China has made a significant push for mechanized autonomy in all phases of agriculture: more than 45,000 agricultural machines have been equipped with self-driving systems deriving their position and navigation from BeiDou.

The total output value of China’s satellite navigation and location services industry reached 403.3 billion yuan ($64 billion U.S.) in 2020, up 16.9 percent from the previous year, according to a recent industry report.

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“As spring comes to an end and temperatures gradually rise, the spring sowing and planting season in China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region has begun. In southern Xinjiang, large cotton fields are taking advantage of the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System for their high efficiency. Our reporters are in different locations in Xinjiang for the live sowing events.”

According to a JiangSu BDS Application Industry Institute presentation, the use of the Chinese GNSS has increased land production by 20%, increased land utilization by 10%-20%, reduced “leak” by 10%-20%, improve dthe efficiency of agricultural machinery by 20% over standard agricultural practices, reduced manpower costs by 30%, improved the critical time of operation, as during the spring sowing season crews can work 24 hours, day and night.

The Xianjiang Uygur Autonomous Region is home to many ethnic minority groups, including the Turkic Uyghur people. No mention is made in the coverage of the current international controversy regarding persecution of these indigenous peoples.

Image courtesy CGTN.

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This move to standardize is important to ensure the development and industrial application of BeiDou through drafting national standards, said the office. Open to global users since July 2020, BeiDou can provide a variety of value-added services such as global search and rescue assistance, short message communication, ground-based and satellite-based augmentation and precise point positioning (PPP), on addition to standard positioning, navigatin and timing.

BDS has provided comprehensive services for sectors such as transport, public security, disaster relief, agriculture, forestry and urban governance, read a report released by the China Satellite Navigation Office in 2020.

As a next step, China will continue to promote the technical standardization works to sustain the design, production, test certification and data sharing of BDS-related products and boost the development of BDS-related applications.

China’s satellite navigation and positioning industry gained a total output value of 345 billion yuan (about $53.3 billion USD) in 2019. The figure is expected to hit 400 billion yuan in 2020.

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All performance indicators of the system completed expert technical verification on the Sixth Navigation Systems Panel (NSP/6) of the ICAO held from November 2 to 13, which represents the completion of the core and most important work of officially incorporating the BDS-3 into the ICAO’s standards.

The technical verification of BDS-3 is the first time that a BDS civil signal has been qualified by the international organization. The ICAO has high requirements for global navigation satellite systems, and the verification by the ICAO shows BDS-3 has the ability to provide navigation services for global civil aviation. Airlines are now permitted by ICAO to incorporate the system as a source of navigation service.

“This is important basic work. The incorporation into ICAO standards will open up more application scenarios for the BDS,” said Wang Yanan, chief editor of Aerospace Knowledge magazine. “More foreign airlines are expected to use the BDS under a cooperation framework.”

It is also the first time that China’s civil aviation industry has successfully promoted a domestically created and built complex system to join the ICAO standard with its own team as the core, according to the CCTV report. According to the work plan of the ICAO navigation system expert group, the BDS-3 team provided demonstration materials, completed the verification of all technical indicators, and obtained the unanimous approval of the other three mainstream navigation systems (GPS, GLONASS and Galileo) and passed the final verification process.

The ICAO navigation system expert group will report the meeting result to the Air Navigation Commission for further discussion. The BDS-3 will be officially written into ICAO standards and announced worldwide after the discussion is finished.

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