United thinking: "capture" Beidou

From greatness to greatness, it has always been the public's expectation for China enterprises. The growth of enterprises is a mirror of China's economy and a symbol of national progress. From head enterprises to unicorns to small and micro enterprises, choose more and have a better future. Those "pregnant" enterprises are pregnant with unique management beauty. They may have unfamiliar technological innovations, or add extra points to services, or have social responsibilities, or have grand ideas, which constitute the company's "intelligent power" and contribute to people's yearning for a better life.

For most people, waiting for luggage is a bad experience when traveling by air. At Daxing International Airport, which will be put into operation soon, with the use of ultra-wideband (UWB) high-precision indoor positioning system, the accuracy of 10 cm will make the tracking of checked baggage "under control".

Behind the "luggage has traces" is the figure of a private satellite navigation enterprise-He Zhong Si Zhuang. How do familiar satellite navigation systems such as GPS and Beidou "fly into the homes of ordinary people" and apply them to mobile navigation, logistics tracking, engineering survey, precision agriculture and other fields? There is an industry market with a scale of 100 billion.

From acting as an agent for foreign terminal products to independently developing the world's first navigation chip supporting all signals, the growth of He Zhongsichuang1/in the 4th century witnessed the development path of China's satellite navigation industry, and also explained the upgrading process of China's economic transformation iteration.

"The investment in independent research and development is huge." Wu Lin, the company's vice president in charge of technology research and development, was impressed by He Zhongsizhuang New Space-Time Science and Technology Innovation Center in Yizhuang Economic Development Zone. "But we have always thought very clearly that this road must go on unswervingly."

Grow with Beidou.

"3, 2, 1, ignite." At 2: 09 on June 25th, xichang satellite launch center, Long March 3B successfully launched the 46th Beidou navigation satellite. This is the 2 1 networking satellite of Beidou-3 system. In 2020, the entire Beidou-3 will cover the whole world with global networking and high-precision navigation and positioning services.

One month before the launch, Qin Tian II, the world's first high-precision baseband chip independently developed by He Zhong stronghold and fully supporting Beidou III civil navigation signal system, was officially released in Beijing.

"The development of the company is basically synchronized with the construction of Beidou navigation system." Wu Lin mentioned to reporters when reviewing the development course of He Zhongsi Zhuang.

From 65438 to 0994, the American GPS system entered the civil field, and the China Beidou satellite navigation test system was formally established. This year, Guo Xinping, who taught at Beihang University, resigned and went to sea, and registered and established He Zhong stronghold company, becoming one of the earliest enterprises to enter the field of satellite navigation.

"The application of satellite navigation is only limited by imagination." At that time, China's market economy position had just been established, and there were blue oceans everywhere, especially the satellite navigation industry. He Zhong Stranden, who won the general agent of Jiaming Company in China, the largest navigation GPS manufacturer in the United States, got the first bucket of gold in the fishing boat market and got on the "express train" of the rapidly expanding car navigation market, thus completing the original capital accumulation and market development.

In Wu Lin's view, the development of the first ten years is very important. "Without the capital accumulation and market development in the first decade, there may be no rapid development in the second decade. In China, many enterprises have gone through a similar path. From a trading company or a company that sells other people's products to independent product research and development, it will eventually be completely autonomous and controllable. "

The transition occurs around 20 10. Due to business adjustment, He Zhong Shanzhai and Jiaming parted ways, and the business model of He Zhong Shanzhai gradually changed from processing agent to independent production and research and development. Guo Xinping once described this transformation as "something has been lost, and we have to supplement it with our own things".

Another background is the accelerated formation of Beidou navigation system. In 20 12, Beidou-2 system was successfully networked and began to provide services to the Asia-Pacific region. At the policy level, a series of measures aimed at accelerating the popularization and industrialization of Beidou satellite navigation system in the civil field have been intensively introduced. During this period, He Zhong stronghold not only successfully landed in the capital market, but also acquired Hemisphere, the third largest high-precision satellite navigation and positioning chip and board company in the world.

Qin Tian iteration

Not long ago, the Galileo satellite navigation system in Europe went down for five days, which caused quite a shock in the industry. However, for most ordinary people, Galileo's "lockout" did not affect their lives. But the revelation of the shutdown is, what if the GPS system fails this time?

A complete satellite navigation industry chain includes the upper, middle and lower reaches. The upstream is the basic components such as baseband, RF chip and board card, the midstream is the terminal equipment bearing positioning function, and the downstream is the operation service including system software. Among them, RF and baseband chips are the foundation of the industrial chain.

For a long time, due to the dominant position of GPS, the dominant position in the upstream field has been firmly controlled by American enterprises, and the emergence of Beidou has opened a gap. The second-generation Qin Tian launched by He Zhong stronghold in May this year increased the frequency from 24 to 3 1, thus supporting all navigation system signals.

Wu Lin said that the frequency in the satellite navigation chip is actually similar to the network system in the smart phone chip. The number of frequency points supported by the chip can be understood as the difference between whether the mobile phone supports 3G or 4G. "The more frequency points are supported, the stronger the ability to receive and process navigation signals at the same time."

At present, Qin Tian II is the world's first baseband chip supporting all constellations and all frequencies. In fact, it is not easy to achieve this goal. All constellations and all frequencies mean that all the current satellite signals should be carefully combed and analyzed, and the design and arrangement of these signal processing channels should be realized on a 55 nm chip. "The general civil navigation chip only has more than 40 processing channels, but on the second generation of Qin Tian, 1 100 channels are integrated." Wu Lin introduced.

Compared with analyzing the known signals, it is more difficult to perceive the unknown. Wu Lin said: "We left a back door on the passage. By setting flexible correlator technology and corresponding software configuration, the demodulation of new satellite navigation signals generated in the future is realized. In other words, how the future signals change, we can also change synchronously through software. "

Innovation incentive

In the field of scientific and technological innovation, rising stars often encounter technical blockades and patent barriers. In recent years, the international control of technology export in the field of integrated circuits has become more and more strict, which has also brought considerable risks to enterprises in introducing new technologies. How to break the situation and become a technologically innovative enterprise needs to be solved together.

Talking about this matter, Wu Lin said that any industry, as long as it is doing technology, will be affected to a certain extent, and the most important thing is patents. "For He Zhongzhuang, a breakthrough in the field of technology is definitely necessary."

For example, in the field of satellite navigation, there is a narrow correlation technology that can improve the positioning performance of the receiver, but this patent has been applied by foreign companies. "You know each other's processing algorithm is very good, but you just can't use it. What should I do? You have to innovate yourself and find a way to bypass it. "

Breaking and standing are two sides of the same body. With the strengthening of domestic intellectual property protection, enterprises pay more and more attention to patent application and protection. According to Wu Lin, in terms of patent application, the company currently has professionals engaged in this work, responsible for technical novelty retrieval and protection scope. On the other hand, a set of incentive mechanism has been established within the enterprise to encourage technicians to carry out scientific and technological innovation. "Our company has a special bonus. The technicians who apply for patents will be rewarded once, and the patents will be rewarded again. "

It is understood that, as an earlier company engaged in Beidou R&D in China, He Zhong stronghold currently owns domestic patents 152, foreign patents 44, international patents 12 and software copyrights 7 10.

Mastering the core technology has brought real development to the company. In Wu Lin's view, with the core technology, we can continuously and effectively improve the terminal products and ensure the technological leadership of the whole system. At the same time, it can also ensure its competitive advantage in terms of cost.

Fight for the world

According to the National Medium and Long-term Development Plan of Satellite Navigation Industry, the scale of China's satellite navigation industry will reach 400 billion yuan by 2020, and the contribution rate of Beidou satellite navigation system to the domestic satellite navigation market is about 60%-80%.

Globally, with the resumption of the launch of the third generation GPS satellites, the construction of satellite navigation systems in Europe and Russia has been carried out in an orderly manner, and India, Japan, Brazil and other countries are also planning. From the application point of view, with the growth of new formats such as Internet of Things, smart agriculture and driverless driving, the demand for navigation accuracy is increasing.

All of the above means that the great navigation era of satellite navigation industry is coming soon.

In recent years, a series of M&A cases of United Siqiang can show the company's "ambition" to go global. After the company acquired the shares of North American Peninsula on 20 13, it also successively won foreign companies such as STONEX, an Italian surveying and mapping company, and AgJunction, a Canadian listed company. At present, He Zhong stronghold has established a domestic and international product R&D and production and marketing framework system, including China, the United States, Canada and Italy, and the products are distributed in more than 90 countries and regions around the world.

This idea has copied the development path of Trimble, a leading enterprise in the international satellite navigation industry, to some extent. In the next ten years from 2000, Tianbao made about 100 mergers and acquisitions, thus becoming a leading enterprise deeply involved in the whole GPS industry chain.

"Just like the Beidou system goes from the region to the world, we hope that He Zhong Sizhuang is not just a simple China enterprise, but a global enterprise." At the end of the interview, Wu Lin revealed to the reporter her longing for beauty and strong thinking. He said that in the next application scenarios, satellite positioning is only a part of it, such as the automatic operation of excavators in smart agriculture, and it needs to be integrated with related technologies such as visual sensors, while the industrial chain of He Zhong stronghold will cover high-precision professional products, platform construction and operation services.

Qin Tian hides the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl.

Naming new products has always been a special thing. However, the origin of the name "Qin Tian" is quite accidental.

Lyra, one of the 88 modern constellations designated by the International Astronomical Union. But in the interview, Zhang Ruifeng, manager of the public relations department of He Zhong Shanzhai Market, recalled: "This is a story of a cowherd and a weaver girl."

The inspiration originally came from gravitational wave events. "Qin Tian Generation" first appeared on 20 16. In February this year, human beings first announced the detection of gravitational waves. Even now, this is still a major event in astronomy. The gravitational wave detection project in China is called "Qin Tian Project".

With the idea of "rubbing hot spots", the name "Qin Tian" appeared. Zhang Ruifeng said: "The main star of Lyra is Vega, which is well known in China. As a satellite signal processing chip, Vega's image naturally matches the function of the chip, and it also gives the company the vision of weaving' China Precision'. "

On the other hand, there are two mainstream signal enhancement systems in the field of satellite navigation-satellite-based and ground-based. "Qin Tian" chip belongs to satellite-based enhancement, and naming it after a constellation also highlights this feature.

The weaver girl appeared. Where is the cowherd?

Three years later, at the 20 19 "Qin Tian II" conference, He Zhong stronghold officially released two series of high-precision board products, Phantom and Vega, which are equipped with "Qin Tian II" baseband chip, "Tianying" broadband RF chip and Cygnus Swan anti-interference technology.

Heguji, the main star of Aquila, is commonly known as Altair. The function of RF chip is mainly to capture and receive satellite signals. The "Tianying" named after the main constellation of Altair also represents that the product has strong signal acquisition ability. The perfect combination of the two symbolizes that the satellite signal acquisition, tracking and processing ability of the board card is stronger, and at the same time, it also gives it a romantic color with strong China cultural characteristics.

Tianying is signal acquisition, Tianqin is signal processing, and Swan is signal anti-jamming technology. In the summer night sky, the main stars of the three constellations are equilateral triangles, forming the famous summer triangle. In the view of Wu Lin and Zhang Ruifeng, this "iron triangle" also symbolizes that products that integrate the three technologies can better achieve high-precision positioning.