Explainer: NavIC, India’s home-grown alternative to the GPS navigation system

NEW DELHI: The Indian govt is pushing smart phone makers to enable support for its NavIC gps in new devices sold in the country from next year, a shift that has spooked the industry due to additional expenses and tight time frame.

Below are the details of NavIC’s creation, why India desires smartphone makers to adopt it and how the device compares to other worldwide or regional navigation systems.

What is NavIC?

NavIC, or Routing with Indian Constellation, is an independent stand-alone navigation satellite system developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

NavIC was originally authorized in 2006 at a cost of US$174mil (RM800. 57mil). It was anticipated to be completed simply by late 2011, but only became operational in 2018.

NavIC consists of 8 satellites and addresses the whole of India’s landmass and up to 1, 500 km (930 miles) from its limitations.

Currently, NavIC’s use is limited. It is being used in public automobile tracking in India, for providing emergency warning alerts to anglers venturing into the serious sea where there is no terrestrial network connection, and for tracking and providing information related to natural disasters.

Enabling it within smartphones is the next thing India is pressing for.

How does NavIC evaluate?

The main difference is the serviceable region covered by these systems. GPS caters to customers across the globe and its satellites circle the earth twice a day, while NavIC is currently for use in India and adjacent locations.

Like GPS NAVIGATION, there are three a lot more navigation systems that have worldwide coverage – Galileo from the European Union, Russia-owned GLONASS and China’s Beidou. QZSS, operated by Japan, is another regional navigation system covering Asia-Oceania region, having a focus on Japan.

India’s 2021 satellite navigation draft plan stated the government will work towards “expanding the particular coverage from regional to global” to ensure availability of NavIC transmission in any part of the entire world.

NavIC will be “as good because GPS of the United States with regards to position accuracy, inch the Indian govt said in August.

Exactly why is India promoting NavIC?

India says NavIC is definitely conceived with the purpose of removing dependence on foreign satellite systems designed for navigation service needs, particularly for “strategic sectors”.

Relying on systems like GPS and GLONASS may not always be reliable, India says, as individuals are operated by the defence agencies of respective nations and it is possible that civilian services can be degraded or denied.

“NavIC is an indigenous positioning system which is under Indian manage. There is no risk from the service being taken or denied within a given situation, inch the government said within 2021.

Indian also wants to motivate its ministries to utilize NavIC applications to promote local industry engaged in developing indigenous NavIC-based solutions. – Reuters