Print From 9th to 14th Oct. 2022, the sixteenth meeting of the International Committee on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (ICG-16) and Series Meetings were held in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
Led by Mr. YANG Changfeng, the chief designer of BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS), the Chinese Delegation with more than 60 participants from over 10 institutions attended the meeting in a hybrid format. Prof. LU Xiaochun, and other two delegates from National Time Service Center (NTSC), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) participated the great event in Abu Dhabi.
ICG is an intergovernmental informal international organization established under the umbrella of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), to promote voluntary cooperation on matters related to satellite navigation and relevant services applications globally.
As the spokesperson of the Chinese Delegation, Prof. LU took part in discussions in-person, expressing China’s intentions and ideas concerning the rotation procedure of chairmanship of Providers’ Forum and the ICG membership request. As the co-chair of the Interoperability Subgroup, she also co-chaired the subgroup meeting with the U.S. representative, promoting the discussions and communication within the subgroup.
"BDS as an important provider was putting forward Chinese proposals and making Chinese sound in this platform, and BDS, as an advanced navigation system and top-ranking satellite navigation system in the world, was also showing a very confident status in this stage," said Prof. LU, also the deputy director of International Cooperation Center of China Navigation Satellite Office (CSNO).
The representatives from NTSC joined all the parts of the meeting. They exchanged the views on the progress of topics and system development with the representatives from the Secretariat of UNOOSA, U.S., Europe, Japan, and South Korea. In the discussion of timing, the delegates from NTSC gave Chinese suggestions on the technologies and approaches of timing interoperability among providers virtually. As the Chinese representative of the Providers’ Forum, they were also engaged in the draft of the Terms of Reference document of the Providers’ Forum and joint statement of this meeting.
In the branch venue in Beijing (online meeting), NTSC representatives have been fully devoted to the organization, winning effusive praises from the Chinese experts.
This was the first time for BDS and NTSC researchers to visit a foreign country after the pandemic of COVID-19. This visit is expected to enhance NTSC’s engagement of international cooperation and technical exchange in navigation, timing and frequency technologies in the future.