China’s BeiDou satellite navigation system has passed an assessment of critical standardization work at the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) reported, citing the Chinese civil aviation authority and China Satellite Navigation Office.
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.
