Beidou Technology Promotes the Quality Improvement and Upgrading of China-Africa Cooperation (China-Africa Cooperation in the New Era)

Source: People's Daily

From smart agriculture to land mapping, from digital construction to meteorological monitoring, as China's first space infrastructure to provide public services to the world, the Beidou satellite navigation system and related products have been applied in more and more African countries, resulting in significant economic and social benefits and becoming a new engine to promote the quality and upgrading of China-Africa cooperation.

"My life has changed dramatically"

In the Marlboro Mossan Agricultural Park, built by China-Africa cooperation in Saisai City, Gaza Province, Mozambique, Masinger, a planter, is replacing batteries for plant protection drones. After changing the battery, he opened the mobile phone APP, set the next stage of the route and return point, pressed the button, the drone took off, and accurately sprayed pesticides according to the set path. The air currents generated by the rotation of the wings blow away the rice seedlings, leaving a green trail.

Plant protection UAV uses the Beidou system to obtain positioning information, simple operation, uniform spraying, not only to achieve accurate control of the machine, reduce manpower investment, but also improve operational efficiency. Masinger told reporters that compared with the traditional manual spraying of only three or four acres per hour, plant protection drones can spray pesticides for hundreds of acres of fields per hour, especially at night.

Agricultural innovations have given local farmers a taste of sweetness. The average food production of cooperative growers has doubled, and the income has increased significantly. Masinger contracted two hectares of land, "Before my family had only one thatched house, but now we have a cement house, furniture and appliances." Chinese technology has made a huge difference in my life."

The China-Africa Saisai Agricultural Cooperation Project has widely used plant protection UAVs in field plant protection operations such as farmland surveying and mapping, rice sowing, and pesticide spraying, and the cumulative operation has exceeded 30,000 mu. Latif, director of the Department of Agriculture of Gaza Province, said that the precision agriculture model of "Beidou + UAV" is a useful attempt for non-China agricultural technology cooperation, and China's agricultural technology has made an important contribution to Mozambique's food security.

In Africa, in addition to drones, agricultural machinery in the field also uses the services provided by Beidou. At the Higher School of Agricultural Engineering in Mejazbab, Tunisia, the agricultural tractor installed with the Beidou autonomous driving terminal can successfully complete the actions of crossing obstacles, turning back, turning and turning, which provides great convenience for accurate operation of farmland. Hassan Harubi, a technical expert at the school, said: "Tunisia has unmanned agricultural machines that use satellite navigation equipment to precisely locate and control, and I have seen the application of modern technology in agriculture, and I am also optimistic about the application prospects of this technology in Africa." ”

A visitor to the school said that he had only used the navigation software in his mobile phone in the past, and did not expect that China's satellite navigation technology could realize the unmanned driving of agricultural machinery. Such an accurate satellite navigation system makes people look forward to the development of agricultural science and technology in the future.

"Gain valuable time for epidemic prevention and control"

Due to the need for satellite navigation systems, the East African country of Uganda decided to purchase a high-precision Beidou terminal and build its own satellite positioning reference station system. In 2015, Mulin Dewa, chairman of the Uganda Surveying Association, and others came to Shanghai Sinan Satellite Navigation Technology Co., Ltd. to observe and learn high-precision Beidou products and technologies. After training, Mulin Dewa and others initially mastered the operation process of the Beidou terminal and learned simple maintenance.

"The optical equipment we originally used to measure the efficiency is low, more than ten kilometers of road survey, the use of optical equipment takes at least 3 days, using the Beidou high-precision receiver, more than 10 hours can be completed." Davis, a surveyor, said that he used to carry heavy optical instruments out every day, but now he only needs to hold a Beidou receiver to process the relevant data, and the work efficiency and accuracy are greatly improved.

At present, Uganda has built 24 reference stations and 5 are under construction. Mulindeva said that the Beidou/GNSS continuous operation reference station system under construction is the most advanced navigation and positioning system in the East African region, and the services provided are increasingly being applied to surveying and mapping, mining, vehicle management, meteorological monitoring and other work.

According to reports, only the Shanghai Sinan satellite navigation and positioning reference station system has landed in 11 sub-Saharan African countries such as Kenya and Uganda, and hundreds of thousands of users use Beidou products every day.

The sudden outbreak of covid-19 has put burkina Faso's medical infrastructure under great pressure, and the government has decided to build a square cabin hospital to alleviate the shortage of hospital beds. As required, the survey was completed within two weeks. Traditional optical instruments can not complete the measurement work in such a short period of time, and the use of Beidou high-precision receiver, 6 days to successfully complete the entire survey task, more than half of the time than the original plan. Bamney, secretary general of the National Surveying Association of Burkina Faso, praised this: "The efficiency of the Beidou terminal is extremely high, which has won valuable time for epidemic prevention and control. ”

"Injecting impetus into the development of African countries"

In the Jazara Science and Technology Park, a northern suburb of Tunis, the capital of Tunisia, the Sino-Arab Beidou/GNSS Center is located in a coconut grove. This is China's first overseas Beidou center, providing satellite navigation training, test evaluation and technical research for African and Arab countries. Data collected in real time on the center screen shows that Tunisia can receive more than 12 Beidou satellite signals on average.

Amiri Khalil, State Secretary in Charge of Scientific Research affairs at the Ministry of Higher Education of Tunisia, said that the China-Arab Beidou/GNSS Center will help Tunisia and other African countries to cultivate more satellite navigation talents, support the development of the digital economy, use relevant technology platforms, promote the application of satellite navigation technology, and achieve mutually beneficial and win-win cooperation.

The first China-Africa Beidou Cooperation Forum was held in Beijing in November last year. As a newly established sub-forum within the framework of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, the China-Africa Beidou Cooperation Forum has built an open and inclusive cooperation platform for China-Africa Beidou cooperation, which is of great significance for promoting more active exchanges and cooperation between the two sides. The "Beidou Satellite Navigation System in Non-Ten Application Scenarios" released during the forum showed the application cases and application solutions of Beidou in the fields of road transportation, vehicle management, railway industry, precision agriculture and other fields in Africa. Yanghuba Diatara, Minister of Digital Economy and Telecommunications of Senegal, said that the China-Africa Beidou Cooperation Forum is an important achievement of non-China-China scientific and technological cooperation.

Beidou cooperation is an important part of China-Africa digital cooperation, which is conducive to opening up the information arteries of economic and social development and promoting the integration and development of digital technology and the real economy. Mahama Odrago, Director of the Department of Educational Science and Technology Innovation of the AU Commission, said: "The beidou application is an important force in The development process of Africa, and the application of the Beidou system will inject impetus into the development of African countries. The AU looks forward to maintaining close cooperation with China, strengthening international exchanges and interactions, and promoting the innovative application of satellite navigation systems in different fields in Africa through the establishment of cooperation mechanisms. ”

(Beijing, Johannesburg)