BDS Into Saudi Arabia

Recently, “BDS/GNSS Seminar”, organized by China Satellite Navigation Office (CSNO) and King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST), was successfully held in Riyadh, capital of Saudi Arabia. Headed by CSNO, Chinese delegation was constituted by representatives from China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), China North Industries Group Corporation (CNGC), China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC) and other leading institutions in terminal navigation and solution suppliers in the country. Saudi delegation was composed of experts from technology, transportation, surveying, domestic affairs and civil aviation departments. Both sides shared opinions about current situation and potential demands of satellite navigation.

During the event, the expert from Test and Assessment Research Center of China Satellite Navigation Office (CSNO-TARC) gave a speech on “BDS Service Performance”. He stated the overall BDS service performance index and introduced the current service level of BDS in Saudi Arabia, as well as the key indexes of BDS when the system becomes fully constructed in 2020. This presentation provided a clear scope of BDS current circumstances and future development.

During the workshop, representatives from Saudi Surveying Bureau, Synthesis Surveying Committee and other institutions expressed their wishes of joint research on topics like GNSS satellite orbit precision determination, ionospheric inversion and tropospheric computation. The scientific cooperation between China and Saudi Arabia will be carried out subsequently. More and more Saudi Arabic scientific institutions will have better chances to learn and use BDS.

As a BDS research institution specialized in system monitoring and assessment, Testing and Assessment Research Center (TARC) plays an important role during BDS construction and operation service process. In recent years, TARC has strongly developed international cooperation in scientific research field and promoted the BDS application on a global scale.