Comparison of satellite positioning accuracy between China, the United States and Russia: 0.1 meters

The emergence of satellite positioning system has a great impact on people's way of life, for people who do not know the way out, as long as the mobile phone installed navigation software, basically can follow its instructions to find the destination. Due to the various high-tech technologies involved in satellite positioning systems, there are only four kinds of satellite positioning and navigation systems in the world at present, among which GPS in the United States has the largest number of users in the world.

China and Russia also have their own satellite navigation systems, beidou in China and Glonass in Russia. The three kinds of satellite navigation systems have different development time and operation time, and there are slight differences in some areas. In terms of positioning accuracy, the POSITIONING accuracy of the United States is about 0.1 meters, while that of Russia is about 1.5 meters. Then, what is China's Beidou system?
The GPS
The United States as the aviation industry is very developed country, very early in the aerospace industry has made great progress, about the global positioning system research and development in the 1970s was put forward. In 1994, THE U.S. GPS was fully completed, providing round-the-clock, high-precision navigation and positioning services for the vast number of users around the world. GPS is the most widely used in the automotive field, people through its navigation services, can achieve the purpose of going anywhere at any time, for those who do not know the way to remember the way, is a complete Gospel.

GPS not only plays a vital role in the field of automobile navigation, but also provides accurate and effective positioning data in geological exploration, engineering survey and rescue, which makes it widely used in the world. GPS mainly consists of 24 operational satellites supporting global navigation and positioning services. As its use becomes more and more extensive, many countries in the world have become overly dependent on GPS, which has led to the United States to interfere with other countries through GPS.

If the US shuts down GPS service, many countries that enjoy its navigation and location services will suffer a huge impact, and even cause inevitable losses in the military field. The United States first applied GPS precision guided weapons to the battlefield in the Gulf War, using inertial guidance and GPS combined guidance of the POW cruise missile in this war became famous, 288 Tomahawk missile hit rate as high as 98%.

When satellite navigation and positioning technology was first applied to the battlefield, it demonstrated its ability to destroy ground targets accurately, and satellite-guided weapons thus flourished in the military field. During the outbreak of the Iraq War, the United States again dropped more than 6,500 GPS precision-guided bombs on the battlefield, destroying a large number of Iraqi ground tank units. However, GPS precision guided weapons also have a disadvantage, vulnerable to jamming, but accurate strike rate is worthy of praise.

Since the accuracy of GPS precision guided weapons in the battlefield has been verified, many countries began to equip GPS systems in the military field. GPS is widely used in civilian military applications around the world because of its high accuracy, which is reported to be 0.1 meter in military applications. But the use of U.S. navigation systems in the military is vulnerable to U.S. sanctions.
Glonus system
After the successful launch of the first THIRD-generation GPS satellite, the AIR Force Times of the US claimed that the US military could switch on and off GPS signals in specific locations efficiently and quickly according to the situation. This shows that the US has the ability to turn off GPS signals in the other side's combat areas at will during wartime, so that its GPS-guided bombs will lose their ability to locate and strike. In order not to be dominated by others, Russia has long realized the importance of developing satellite navigation systems, such as Glonas.

Glonas was originally developed by the Soviet Union, but before it could be established, the red Empire collapsed and was left to the Russians. The development of Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union was not very clear, and the lack of funding led to the slow progress of the establishment of the Glonas system, which did not officially go into operation globally until 2011. Glonass is similar to the U.S. GPS, providing navigation and location services for both civilian and military applications.

However, Glonass is inferior to the U.S. in military field, with a positioning accuracy of only 1.5 meters. Russia has taken a big step toward weaning itself off U.S. GPS dependence, even though it's not yet fully accurate enough to meet its military needs. Russia, which was shocked by the MASSIVE use of GPS-guided bombs by the U.S. in the Iraq War, is more interested in expanding the military application of Glonass and is planning to build a new generation of Glonass K2.

According to Sergei Karudin, chief designer of the Glonas-based system, the upgraded GLonas-K2 will provide users with more reliable navigation and positioning services, with an accuracy of less than 0.3 meters. Roscosmos documents also show that the positioning accuracy of the improved Glonas system will be improved to 0.1 meters by 2030. Due to financial problems, the glonas system upgrade will have to wait for some time.

During the period of waiting for the completion of the upgrade, Russia and China have carried out cooperation on the Beidou Navigation System. The two sides can establish their own ground stations of the satellite navigation system in the other side and carry out in-depth cooperation on the civilian navigation terminal. Glonas was originally developed to compete with the United States in the military field, so its use in the civilian field is limited, while cooperation with The Beidou system could advance its development in the civil aviation field.
Beidou Navigation System
The DEVELOPMENT of the Beidou navigation satellite system was later than that of the United States and Russia. At the present stage, it has completed comprehensive networking and can cover the whole world, providing users around the world with precise navigation and real-time positioning services. It is reported that by the end of 2021, 324 million mobile phones in China can support the Beidou navigation system, accounting for more than 90 percent of the country's mobile phones, covering multiple mobile phone brands.

Before the successful networking of Beidou navigation satellite, navigation and positioning services in China's civil field basically came from GPS. With the expansion of the operation scope of Beidou navigation satellite system, China's dependence on GPS is rapidly decreasing. Moreover, the Beidou navigation system can provide extremely high precision service for China's military development in the military field. It is reported that its accuracy is 0.5 meters, which is between the United States and Russia.
Although the accuracy is relatively poor compared with GPS, it can roughly meet the military's numerous needs. In terms of anti-interference capability, the relevant designers of Beidou Navigation system developed a powerful anti-interference system, which can effectively ensure that the Beidou navigation satellite can still maintain stable operation under the interference of anti-satellite technology.

Another advantage of the Beidou navigation system is the large number of satellites, which can operate more stably. Now, the Beidou navigation system has formed a multi-industry system, and will bring more economic benefits to China in the future.