CAPS (Chinese Area Positioning System)

[Sharicoff]

http://www.gmat.unsw.edu.au/snap/publications/lib&dempster2010a.pdf

When it comes to China's satellite navigation efforts, most attention is focused on the Compass (Beidou-2) GNSS that is under development. However, since 2002, that nation has also been working on a regional system called CAPS — for Chinese Area Positioning System. Although CAPS operates on C-band frequencies, rather than L-band in which most GNSS systems transmit, it has a very similar signal structure as GPS. This article discusses the history, system architecture, and advantages and disadvantages of CAPS.

A less well-known RNSS is the Chinese Area Positioning System, or CAPS. CAPS is a "passive" one-way system similar to most navigation satellite systems: satellites broadcast the navigation messages; receivers are only "listeners." (Beidou-1 is a two-way system, the user also sends messages to the control center through satellites).
But CAPS is also different from all the other navigation satellite systems in
that the navigation messages are generated on the ground and uploaded to the communication satellites, with the satellites acting only as transponders