Beidou played valuable role during Games

Homegrown navigation satellite system helped train Team China athletes

China's Beidou Navigation Satellite System played an invisible but important role in the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games, according to the China Satellite Navigation Office.

The office said in a statement that some Chinese athletes and their trainers benefited from the use of a Beidou-enabled training suit developed by researchers from Capital University of Physical Education and Sports and some other research institutes.

Based on the Beidou system's high-precision positioning function, the suit helped coaches check and record data about athletes' location, route, speed and acceleration.

By compiling and analyzing such data, coaches can adjust training plans and athletes can improve their tactics or maneuvers, the statement said, adding the suit is also able to warn athletes if they approach places with safety hazards.

It noted the suit had been used by Chinese athletes in sports like Alpine and cross-country skiing when they trained for the Olympics.

Inside the Big Air Shougang venue in Beijing, a group of driverless vehicles were on trial during the Games. The autonomous cars, which integrate artificial intelligence, 5G communication and Beidou technologies, were used to transport visitors and cargoes, deliver goods and conduct security patrols.

Thanks to the space-based navigation and positioning service from Beidou, the vehicles could rapidly and accurately reach their users or destinations, saving a lot of labor and time, according to the office.

For managers of a main highway linking two major Games venues－Beijing's Yanqing district and Chongli district in Zhangjiakou, Hebei province－Beidou was also a helpful asset as navigation and positioning signals transmitted from Beidou satellites were processed via a ground-based augmentation system and then sent to cars traveling in tunnels along the highway to assist drivers.

"Beidou has once again proved to be very useful in large events such as the Winter Games as we have seen," said Wang Yanan, editor-in-chief of Aerospace Knowledge. "I am sure its capabilities and functions that served organizers, coaches and athletes will also make our lives easier and more comfortable."

Beidou is China's largest civilian satellite system and one of four global navigation networks, along with the United States' GPS, Russia's GLONASS and the European Union's Galileo.

Since 2000, a total of 59 Beidou satellites, including the first four experimental ones, have been lifted into space, with some of them already retired.

President Xi Jinping announced in July 2020 that the system had been completed and had started providing full-scale global services, after the final satellite to complete Beidou's third-generation network was placed into orbit in June.