Huawei officially disclosed the story behind the "far ahead" technology: this time, Huawei did not throw off its opponents, but threw 40,000 kilometers

Author | Huawei's terminal satellite communication team

Source | Huawei People, Blue Blood Research (lanxueyanjiu)

Satellite communication technology has always been difficult to enter the homes of ordinary people, because it involves many challenges and problems. For example, how to realize the miniaturization of satellite antennas, how to integrate satellite communication modules on baseband chips, how to solve the energy consumption problem of satellite call function, how to ensure the stability and security of satellite call function, and so on. And these problems, industry experts almost all agree that it is impossible to complete. Only Huawei dares to eat this crab in the industry, and other peers are not without opportunities, but the olive branch thrown by the country is unanimously cold and rejected. Thankfully, Huawei did, and did it very well.

Today, Huawei officially revealed the story behind it.

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Connecting you to the world all the time

Text | Huawei's terminal satellite communication team

From the Tianshan Mountains to Mobei, from primeval forests to snow-capped mountains and glaciers, from remote islands to towering mountain tops, people can always reach places that cannot be reached by signals. In order to ensure that contact is not lost in these extreme scenarios, two-way Beidou satellite messages came into being. This is a function that can send and receive messages without a signal, a function that is not usually needed, but can save lives when it is critical.

It took three years of exploration for this idea to go from germination to reality. We have gone deep into the "no man's land" of the communications industry, formed a full-dimensional innovation matrix from chips, hardware, radio frequency, antennas, software, testing to operation, established the world's first mass intelligent terminal satellite communication solution from scratch, launched the world's first Beidou satellite messaging function on the Mate50 series, and realized the rapid commercial use of multi-platform and multi-form products such as Mate Xs2, P60, Mate X3, Nova11, and WATCH Ultimate within one year. It has opened up a new frontier of terminal communication.

This is also a commercial breakthrough in the development of civil satellite communication technology, which not only leads a new wave in the terminal communication industry, but also creates an industry-leading "cross-generation" advantage for Huawei's products. This previously unattainable satellite communications technology will make a real difference to people in emergency response, scientific research, and mountaineering expeditions, and keep you connected to the world. Because the satellites that provide services are about 40,000 kilometers away from us, we proudly say: "This time, we didn't throw off our opponent a single street, we threw off our opponent 40,000 kilometers." ”

01

An earth-shattering idea

How did this "piercing the sky" technology come about?

As we all know, Huawei's competitiveness in the field of terminal communications has encountered great challenges in recent years. At this time, we need to find breakthroughs in new technology fields, and we need to have characteristics from 0 to 1 to defend Huawei's brand influence. In 2019, at a symposium on the development of communication technology, we came up with a groundbreaking idea: "seamless" coverage. In the absence of terrestrial networks in the Gobi Desert, vast oceans, disaster sites, etc., can we still support users to communicate with the outside world? From 2G to 5G, no matter which generation of mobile communication, there must be a strong, dense and reliable network support behind it. How does it work? How to integrate with traditional mobile networks?

But at the seminar, most people were not optimistic about the idea. To really realize this technology, it is very far and very ethereal. But it was this sparkling idea that became the initial germ of the project.

We then embarked on a series of extensive surveys. The results were unexpected. We found that China has a vast territory, and there are still a large number of areas that have not achieved terrestrial communication network coverage, and in some provinces more than half of the areas without signal coverage. Coupled with the paralysis of communication facilities in the eastern and southern seas, rivers and lakes, and the disaster, there are far more "communication deserts" than we expected.

We have also seen a lot of unfortunate news: the flood in Poyang, Jiangxi, the mobile phone communication was interrupted, and the rescuers could only drive the assault boat to climb in door to house to determine whether there were people in distress, the rescue efficiency was low, and the best time for rescue was missed; Geological surveyors entered the area from Zhenyuan County to Xinping County in the hinterland of Ailao Mountain in Yunnan Province, and lost contact when they carried out the special task of the national annual forest resources survey... These life-and-death moments in disaster relief have strengthened our belief that we need to fill the gaps.

Not only that, more and more mass consumers are participating in outdoor travel adventures, with nearly 60 million people participating in outdoor travel in China every year, which also derives a lot of demand for outdoor travel communication and rescue, as of the beginning of 2022, there are 4.67 million entries in Baidu query "hiking no signal". This also means that this demand is a rigid need for a large number of people.

With the multi-path attempt of the communication team, the direction of satellite communication began to become clear, and the window of opportunity also quietly came with the gradual maturity of the Beidou-3 system.

02

An innovation agreement

Breathe soul into the project

To realize the functions of a heavy dedicated terminal on a thin and light mass intelligent terminal, it is a new beginning from the concept, protocol, device to operation mode. In order to explore the no-man's land, in 2020, we formed a satellite communication team.

When a newly formed team enters a new field and lacks experience and weaponry, everyone will inevitably be afraid and confused: "Nothing, can we do it?" ”

In order for this new team to build beliefs, goals and confidence, we first conducted some independent exploration, and the team members divided the work to collect the value scenarios of satellite communications: some members went to investigate disaster scenarios, some members went to investigate the coverage of the land without network, and some members went to investigate the needs of emergencies. Although there has long been a consensus that satellite communication is an important solution to the long-term existence of "communication desert" scenarios without traditional terrestrial communication networks, the process of letting members find this answer has strengthened everyone's recognition of the value of this matter and stimulated everyone's sense of responsibility. For example, a "bearded" brother of RF sighed: "Saving a life is better than building a seventh-level floating slaughter, if we can really save people, everything we pay is worth it." ”

The team is determined to make it faster and easier for consumers to access satellite communication services, and has set a goal to enable consumers to enjoy satellite communication services without changing SIM cards, mobile phone numbers, or additional devices. Later, this goal was highly recognized by the satellite communication industry and was collectively referred to as the "three noes principle".

After in-depth contact with the Beidou system, we learned that the civilian short message technology of the Beidou-3 system has only completed the definition of the signal level, and the entire communication protocol from the physical layer to the application layer is still blank. This makes us very excited, and the "blank" means that this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: we will have the opportunity to design a communication protocol for a completely new communication system from start to finish.

The existing dedicated terminals are bulky and difficult to use, and we need to carry out end-to-end transformation and design of the entire system if we want to realize satellite communication on thin and light intelligent terminals. At the beginning of the project, the team did not rush to roll out the research in an all-round way, but quickly identified the key to the project - the satellite-to-ground communication protocol, because many subsequent software and hardware designs will be based on the protocol. That's where our team excels.

Our protocol design experts spent two months efficiently defining a set of narrowband communication systems suitable for ultra-low capacity such as Beidou, injecting soul into the whole project, breaking through the capacity limitations of the narrowband satellite communication system, and making the impossible possible. Relying on this innovative satellite-to-ground communication protocol, team members began to move towards hardware, RF, antenna, software, testing, operation and other fields, around the goals and processes defined by the protocol, members through the traction of key technical indicators, in-depth joint design in various fields, so that the end-to-end system gradually took shape, and the whole team and project gradually got better.

This innovative protocol design truly solves many problems in the Beidou system, and eventually becomes the industry standard for the public terminal solution of the Beidou system, which strongly promotes the civilian development of the Beidou industry.

03

Across mountains and seas

18 months of field testing

Although the short message function of the Beidou system has been available for many years, it is still the first to be applied in the mass civilian terminal. Our country is vast, how is the coverage of satellite signals throughout the country? Will our designs work in different locations? We don't have a priori data on these questions, and we don't have a bottom in our hearts.

Fortunately, the company has enough equipment resources and construction experience. First of all, the strong laboratory resources provide reliable support for the project. In addition to the electromagnetic compatibility test environment and OTA antenna performance laboratory, in May 2021, we also established the world's first end-to-end satellite-ground convergence communication verification system for mass consumer intelligent terminals. In March 2022, the construction of the "trial operation" platform of Changlian commercial solution was completed, laying the foundation for the stable operation of the system after it was launched. I remember that when Beidou experts first saw our laboratory, they sincerely sighed: "You are standing on the shoulders of giants, and you are really a trustworthy team with a strong foundation." ”

Shanghai Research Institute is the world's first end-to-end satellite-ground integrated communication verification system for mass consumer-grade intelligent terminals

In order to ensure the stability of "Beidou Satellite Message" in multiple scenarios and regions, we once again demonstrated the perseverance and rigor of the "science and engineering man". In 31 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions, as well as outdoor scenarios such as uninhabited areas, Gobi Deserts, alpine jungles, rivers, seas and lakes, and grassland basins, we conducted 18 months of field tests, and finally successfully implemented Beidou satellite messages into commercial products.

In order to find a place where there was really no signal to verify the effect of the feature, the test team rented a car and drove all the way from Golmud along the Kunlun Mountains into the Hoh Xil area. It was snowing heavily all the way, the surroundings were very desolate and uninhabited, and the students who drove the car had "fuel anxiety symptoms" and were always worried: if they couldn't find a gas station, they would stop cooking. The student sitting in the back row holding the test phone has been paying attention to the signal strength, praying that there will be more no signal points, but whenever he sees the signal disappear, he can always be heard excitedly shouting: "Stop!" Stop! Stop! There is no signal, stop now! ”

The vast sea of snow is uninhabited

Test the outfield

At the same time, in the scorching sun of Xi'an, in order to verify typical application scenarios, testers climbed the Qinling Mountains at an altitude of more than 3,000 meters. The weather was so hot that everyone had drunk all the water they had brought, and their skin was hot. Seeing that a bottle of mineral water at a roadside stall actually costs 8 yuan, the test colleague was hesitating, and a stall owner said: "There is no small shop if you climb up, and you can't miss it when you pass by!" Everyone nodded to each other helplessly. When the mineral water arrived, everyone drank a few big sips of "Gu Dong Gu Dong", and finally relieved their strength.

In order to check the upper limit of the system's capacity and minimize the impact on system services, ten brothers and sisters squatted on the roof of the Kyocera building at 12 o'clock in the evening, enduring mosquito bites and bouts of sleepiness in summer, and used hundreds of prototypes to complete the first stress test since the opening of the Beidou-3 system. That night, hundreds of mobile phones filled the rooftop of Kyocera. Such a spectacular scene has become a memory that we relish.

This test allowed us to obtain valuable verification data, and also reassured us that we had enough confidence in the carrying capacity of the system after commercial use.

System shock test in the early hours of the morning

There are countless scenarios like this that push the limits. When the Mate50 series was launched, the performance of Beidou satellite messaging even surpassed the previous dedicated terminals, which effectively guaranteed the commercial success of Beidou satellite messaging. Subsequently, the P60 and MateX3 achieved the world's first two-way Beidou satellite message, and the WATCH Ultimate became the world's first smart watch to support two-way Beidou satellite messaging.

With the commercial use of these products, Beidou satellite messaging has brought huge volume to Huawei's products, and formed a "cross-generation" advantage that leads the industry, opening the prelude to the great development of terminal satellite communications.

The Mate 50 entered the National Museum for display in October 2022

04

The Beidou hangs in the sky

The message spread to Hongyu

Every generation will have its own responsibilities. From 0 to 1 to create history, the first to realize satellite communication into the mass consumer intelligent terminal, so that satellite communication into the homes of ordinary people, the success of Beidou satellite message has opened the prelude to the development of terminal satellite communication. We are proud to be part of the team involved in the project. It is the unremitting efforts of every member, the help of every partner, and the silent support of all family members that make this dream a reality and make it possible.

"Beidou hangs in the sky, and the message spreads Hongyu", we did it!