Recently, the first integrated application project of "5G Beidou high-precision positioning" in the field of slope monitoring in China has landed in Guangxi.
In June 2019, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology officially issued 5G commercial licenses to China Telecom, China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Broadcasting and Television, and the construction of 5G networks in China was fully launched; In 2020, with the deployment of two geostationary Beidou-3 satellites in space, the network of Beidou-3 global navigation system satellites will be fully completed. The two great powers may seem separated by heaven and earth, but they are destined to intersect. Their deep integration will bring unprecedented scenery to people. As the chief designer of the BeiDou satellite navigation system said, "BeiDou 5G will fully leverage the natural characteristics of the BeiDou system and achieve deep application of the BeiDou system in the field of information." Wan Yi, Deputy Director of the Institute of Technology and Standards at the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, told a reporter from Science and Technology Daily that the basic technologies and theories related to "5G BeiDou" are already available and have entered the standardization stage. Over time, relevant applications will be fully deployed. Ran Chengqi, Director of the China Satellite Navigation System Management Office and spokesperson for the BeiDou Satellite Navigation System, stated at the press conference of the State Council Information Office held in December 2019 that the BeiDou system has a natural relationship with 5G.
Ran Chengqi said that Beidou itself is an important national spatiotemporal infrastructure, providing high-precision location and time information. 5G and Beidou have natural advantages in integrating networks, technologies, terminals, and applications. At the same time, Beidou can build a new generation of information spatiotemporal technology system with high precision, reliability, and security. Technologies such as the Internet of Things, cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence, and blockchain cannot do without Beidou, nor can they do without 5G. While integrating, the two will also empower each other. Liu Jingnan, academician of the CAE Member and former president of Wuhan University, once pointed out in the report that 5G is the infrastructure of the intelligent era, and its characteristics of "extremely high speed, great capacity, and extremely low delay" can provide basic support to meet the application needs of virtual reality, intelligent manufacturing, automatic driving, and so on in the future. But to achieve these applications, 5G alone is clearly difficult to handle. Liu Jingnan stated that solving the problem requires new infrastructure, which is the Beidou Global Navigation Satellite System. The Beidou system can achieve precise synchronization of global time, and can empower machines and network environments with natural biological intelligence such as navigation, positioning, and timing through 5G on a wide or even global scale. Beidou and 5G mutually empower and enhance each other, generating five major capabilities: perception, learning, cognition, decision-making, and regulation. This enables physical devices with wide or global distribution to have functions such as computing, communication, remote collaboration, precise control, and autonomy based on perception.
What kind of application will the deep integration of 5G and BeiDou achieve?
The slope monitoring system mentioned earlier, relying on 5G Internet of Things technology, integrates a large number of monitoring sensors used to detect geological loosening and small displacement into the monitoring network, achieving intelligent analysis and early warning of slope landslide geological disasters; At the same time, 5G and BeiDou technology are integrated to achieve high-precision positioning better than 1mm. Once abnormal displacement occurs, it can accurately locate the location of hidden dangers, facilitating rapid investigation and immediate disposal. For more future applications, Wan Yi said, "It depends on our imagination." Wan Yi explained that the advantage of satellite positioning technology lies in its wide coverage, but there may be some deviation in positioning accuracy indoors or in areas obstructed by buildings. China is conducting research on indoor positioning technology based on 5G base stations and is committed to integrating it with satellite navigation systems to form an ubiquitous positioning network. At that time, the application of shopping guides, emergency rescue and other scenarios will be greatly improved, and many new businesses based on positioning functions will also develop. "We believe that the integration of Beidou and 5G will bring new formats and models, and will play a greater role in future new technologies such as smart cities, smart manufacturing, smart homes, and smart agriculture." said Ran Chengqi. Of course, to achieve "5G Beidou", a standardization process is still needed at present. Wan Yi said that this will take about 2 years. "At present, the 5G standards we are releasing are mainly focused on broadband and improving transmission rates. Starting from the next version, standards related to the Internet of Things, positioning, and some enhanced technologies will keep up. Therefore, from a standardization perspective, there is still one version left." Wan Yi said, when the standardization work is completed, everyone can unify the standards, system, network, and terminals, and the entire business can be quickly launched.
It can be imagined that in the foreseeable future, "5G Beidou" will bring more possibilities to our lives.
