According to media reports, Mei Ganghua, a researcher at the Wuhan Institute of physics and mathematics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, has led the team for more than 20 years to develop a spaceborne rubidium atomic clock with complete independent intellectual property rights. The accuracy of the time is up to 10 billion seconds. It has been used in Beidou three and can provide a decimeter positioning.

One of the core technologies of the satellite positioning system is the timing accuracy. The highest accuracy is the atomic clock, mainly hydrogen atomic clocks, cesium atomic clocks and rubidium atomic clocks. Compared with the three, the rubidium atomic clock has the advantages of small volume, light weight, low power consumption, high reliability and long life, and the lowest cost in manufacture and use.

According to Mei Ganghua's introduction, the spaceborne rubidium atomic clock needs to be small in size and low in power consumption, and at the same time, it has extremely high reliability. The research and development difficulty is very high. The early rubidium atomic clock has 1 people. The newest edition of the rubidium atomic clock is only the size of the shoe box, and it will further improve the performance and reduce the volume in the future.

Up to now, the Wuhan Institute of physics and mathematics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has 45 rubidium atomic clocks with the Beidou satellite, and 6 others for other satellites.

Ordinary rubidium clock photos

According to the Mei Ganghua Research Institute, although the existing spaceborne rubidium clock can fully meet the positioning accuracy requirement of Beidou three satellite system, he and his team have been developing the next generation of spaceborne atomic clocks - mercury ion clocks.

China's Beidou three satellite has launched 21 satellites. It is expected that 30 satellites will be completed in 2020, which will provide location services for the whole world.