China claims global coverage GPS alternative BeiDou

The Chinese counterpart to GPS and Galileo, called BeiDou, should have global coverage as of this week, authorities have announced. With an accuracy of up to 5 meters, users can determine positions.

In a statement posted online by the South China Morning Post, Ran Chengqi, who works as a director general at the China Satellite Navigation Office, indicated that BeiDou is now able to position positions around the world. The claimed worldwide coverage comes earlier than expected; Initially, this was only planned for 2020. BeiDou can determine the location with an accuracy of up to 5 meters in Asia, but in the rest of the world it is limited to 10 meters.

BeiDou has been developed so that China has an independent positioning system, and is therefore not dependent on, for example, the American GPS. In terms of accuracy, however, there is still work to be done: GPS is accurate to centimeters. However, Chengqi indicates that improvements will be made in the coming years, so it is likely that the accuracy will increase further.

In addition to GPS and the Chinese BeiDou, more positioning systems have been developed; the European Union has Galileo and Russia has developed Glonass. Japan is also working on its own positioning system.