Positioning result using Beidou system (yellow) and the exact position of an antenna (red) on the roof of Ta Quang Buu Library building ath the University of Science and Technology. Photo courtesy of the Navis Centre.

HA NOI (Biz Hub) — A research team at the Navis Centre, under the Ha Noi University of Science and Technology, has successfully developed an acquisition system to acquire signals from China's Beidou satellite navigation system.

Beidou has the same functions as the US's global positioning system (GPS), Russia's navigation satellite system GLONASS and the EU's Galileo.

Besides providing global positioning services to the Chinese military, the system will be available to civilian users in the Asia-Pacific region for free from December 2012. It is expected to complete with 35 other satellites and offer positioning services around the world in 2020.

"The successful, self-developed, signal acquisition system is a crucial achievement in satellite positioning in Viet Nam," said Truong Minh Duc, leader of the research team, on Vnexpress.

The signal acquisition for Beidou becomes an important part of the centre's multi-global navigation satellite system named NAVISOFT. At the moment, NAVISOFT can acquire global positioning signals from GPS, GLONASS, Galileo and now Beidou. — VNS