Academician Wei Ziqing and other four persons from Xi'an Institute of Surveying and Mapping visited Xi’an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics (XIOPM), CAS, on April 25. They made exchanges and discussions with the research staffs at XIOPM on key technologies of X-ray pulsar autonomous navigation.
X-ray pulsar navigation is a new autonomous navigation technology to determine the spacecraft position, velocity and attitude by detecting the X-ray of pulsar. From June 2009, the photon counting detection research group of Optoelectronics Laboratory at XIOPM has carried out the research on the ground simulation system of X-ray pulsar autonomous navigation and X-ray photon counting detector, and achieved initial achievements in scientific research.

During the exchange, academician Wei Ziqing introduced the development status, development prospects and future applications of X-ray pulsars autonomous navigation in details. Researcher Zhao Baosheng, director of Optoelectronics Laboratory at XIOPM, introduced the progresses in photon counting detection made by XIOPM, focusing on the X-ray detector for pulsar navigation developed by research staff at Optoelectronics Laboratory. The two sides conducted the in-depth discussions on pulsar navigation algorithm and performance of X-ray detector.
In the institute, academician Wei Ziqing and others visited the exhibition of scientific and technological achievements at XIOPM.