XinhuaNet | March 22, 2011 | Wang Guanqun
BEIJING, March 22 (Xinhuanet) — China’s car owners are likely to start using a homegrown global positioning system next year, senior space technology experts said at the weekend.
Liu Jingnan, from the Chinese Academy of Engineering who is a specialist in GPS technology, said at a conference in Beijing that the country’s own satellite navigation system, Beidou, will start to offer a GPS service aimed at drivers in 2012, according to a Beijing News report on Monday.
It was the first time the Beidou project has been connected with a grassroots civilian use and an alternative to the currently dominant United States GPS navigation system.
“We estimate the price of navigation chips through Beidou will not exceed those of US GPS,” Liu was quoted in the report as saying. He said each chip will likely be sold for around 100 yuan ($15).
“It will create a huge market if Chinese people can use the country’s own system,” said Yang Yuanxi, a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
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