China expands use of BeiDou navigation system in bike-sharing market

China has further expanded the use of its home-grown BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) in the country's bike-sharing industry.

China began to build the navigation system in the 1990s and completed its construction with the launch of the final satellite, the 55th in the BeiDou family, on June 23.

On the same day, Hellobike, a popular bike-sharing company in China, announced that all of its shared bikes support BDS.

The company released two new bike models that are equipped with BeiDou positioning services in March this year, and then finished remote firmware updates for all existing shared bikes to support BDS.

With the help of high-precision navigation and positioning, users can be guided to park the bikes in a standardized manner, according to Chu Yiqun, a manager of Hellobike.

Equipped with BDS positioning device, the intelligent lock on each bike receives BeiDou satellite signals and sends positioning information to the data center, which will help collect big data on the bikes and estimate users' riding demands in advance, according to the data, Chu said.

BeiDou's high-precision positioning is key for users of shared bikes to help them find and return a bike more accurately, greatly improving user experience, he added.