China's BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) is helping transform farmland in Türkiye, as engineers equip local agricultural machinery with high-accuracy location tracking to ensure higher efficiency of seeding and plowing.
Gao Wei, an agricultural machinery technology engineer with Qianxun SI, the operator for Beidou Foundation Reinforcement system, has spent the past three years testing the BeiDou agricultural machinery automatic navigation driving system.
He and his colleague have traveled to an experimental base in Konya, a major city in central Türkiye, to install the BDS devices on agricultural machines.
Fukan, a local technician with five years of farming experience, is highly familiar the long-standing challenges associated with mechanized farming. Before installing the satellite navigation devices, local farmers used to rely heavily on visual observation, so seeds were often planted crooked, which delayed the planting season and hurt both quality and efficiency. In addition, nighttime work was nearly impossible due to poor visibility, which further limited yields.
After a field test with the device mounted on his planting, Fukan was visibly impressed.
"(With the navigation system,) the row spacing is more uniform, and production efficiency has increased. For farmers, this is a very practical and easy-to-use system," said Fukan.
According to Gao, the system relies on high-precision positioning from BeiDou satellites, combined with intelligent terminals, receivers and sensors, to locate the agricultural machine's position in real time. A steering motor then automatically guides the vehicle along a preset route.
BeiDou services and related products have been exported to more than 140 countries and regions worldwide. For Gao, seeing Chinese innovation take root abroad makes him proud.
"As a BeiDou agricultural machinery technology engineer, I feel especially proud to see Chinese technology gain recognition from overseas farmers. I look forward to the BDS continuing to expand overseas," he said
As a mature, fully functional and high-performance global satellite navigation system, the BDS currently has 50 operational satellites in orbit. It offers a global positioning accuracy of better than 10 meters, velocity measurement accuracy better than 0.2 meters per second, and timing accuracy within 20 nanoseconds. It is being integrated into an increasing number of application scenarios such as positioning, navigation, and international search and rescue.
China's BeiDou Navigation System boosts farming efficiency in Türkiye
