Marine navigation services based on COMPASS(Beidou) and GPS

COMPASS (Beidou) Navigation System is an important high-technology investment of China, the second generation of the system is designed consisting of 35 satellites and will provide 24-hour, global satellite navigation capability, and offered public regional service from 2010. One key advantage of Beidou is the low service cost in marine positioning and communication services. One can expect that Beidou system will create a huge potential market of global positioning services, especially in greater China region. One key challenge of using Beidou in marine positioning and communication services is the difficulties in integrating it with other existing marine positioning systems including Global Positioning System (GPS), Automatic Identification System (AIS), Radar and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) systems etc. As such, this paper aims to describe the development of key data interfacing, communication and processing technologies and an application platform for the seamless integration of the multiple navigation data sources. Integrating Beidou to the existing VMS (Vessel Monitoring Systems) will greatly reduce the investment costs, and provide the opportunities for the fishery industries, maritime traffic management departments to experience the unique advantages of Beidou and explore the huge business potentials.