Navigation with Indian Constellation (NAVIC)

October 22, 2016 October 22, 2016

NAVIC (Navigation with Indian Constellation), which is India’s indigenous global navigation satellite system, is expected to become operational soon. The Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) will soon replace GPS. IRNSS would be useful in land, sea and air navigation and will allow for visual and voice navigation for drivers.

What is Satnav?

Satnav stands for satellite navigation. Satnav is used to track and know the location and positioning of objects for that matter anything like vehicles, persons, crafts etc with the use of appropriate receiver and transmitter. Satellites belonging to navigation systems constantly orbit the earth providing real-time global imagery of the surface of the earth. The data sent by these satellites are received by the receivers in the ground like the receivers fitted in the mobile devices. The satnav constellations across the globe make use of more than 20 satellites. GPS uses 31 active satellites while the GLONASS makes use of 24 active satellites.

Other satnav systems in the world

US’s Global positioning System (GPS) – 31 satellites
Russia’s NAvigational Satellite System (GLONASS) – 24 satellites
EU’s Galileo – 30 satellites
China’s BeiDou Navigation System – 35 satellites

US military controlled Global positioning System (GPS) and Russia’s NAvigational Satellite System (GLONASS) are examples of satnavs. These two are the only satnav systems in operation at present with global coverage.

India’s Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) is a regional satellite system which provides coverage only to apart of the world. Hence consists of seven satellites.

Why India developed a satellite navigation system of its own?

The Indian government approved the development of its own navigation system in May 2006 since other nation controlled global navigation satellite systems are not guaranteed to be available in hostile situations as happened during the Kargil War in 1999. During the Kargil War, India felt the need to develop its own navigation system as GPS data in the region was owned by the US Air force.

Initially, India was inclined to collaborate with the EU to participate in its Galileo Satellite Project. But with China’s substantial involvement in the project, India decided to develop its own indigenous satellite navigation system.

Why the name NAVIC has been chosen to name IRNSS?

Prime Minister has named the indigenous satellite navigation system as NAVIC to honour the legendary Indian sailor and dedicated the acronym to Indian fisherman and navigators.

What are the features of NAVIC?

NAVIC consists of a constellation of seven satellites – three geostationary (appear to be stationary in the sky), four geosynchronous (appears at the same point in the sky at the same time every day) and two on-standby satellites.
NAVIC will provide accurate real-time coverage over India and region around it extending up to 1,500 km.
NAVIC will be providing 24/7, 365 day coverage of the navigation signal throughout the Indian region.
It will have less accurate extended service area over the regions enclosed by latitude 30º south to 50º north, longitude 30º east to 130º east. This region will cover all of South East Asia except parts of Japan, northwest Australia, the Middle East, China and Mongolia, East Africa, and Madagascar.
The seven IRNSS satellites are numbered from 1A to 1G.
IRNSS will provide two services:
- Free service for the use of civilians. This service is called Standard Positioning Service (SPS) and will have an accuracy of up to 20 metres.
- Strongly encrypted service for military use. This is called Restricted Service (RS) and will have an accuracy of up to 10 cm.
IRNSS is independent of existing regional satnav system called GAGAN (GPS Aided GEO Augmented Navigation). GAGAN makes use of American GPS constellation for its functioning and is used by the commercial airline industry and by scientists studying the ionosphere. GAGAN is jointly built by ISRO and the Airports Authority of India (AAI).
Unlike GAGAN, IRNSS aims to be autonomous and independent while still maintaining compatibility with GPS and GLONASS.

Which are the seven satellites?

IRNSS-1A: It was the first satellite of the constellation and was launched in July 2013. It was placed in geosynchronous orbit.
IRNSS-1B: It was placed in the geosynchronous orbit in April 2014.
IRNSS-1C: It was placed in geostationary orbit in October 2014.
IRNSS-1D: It was launched on March 2015.
IRNSS-1E: It was launched in January 2016 using the heaviest variant of PSLV, the PSLV-XL.
IRNSS-1F: It was launched in March 2016.
IRNSS-1G: It was the last satellite in the constellation and was launched in April 2016.

What is the significance of NAVIC?

Select club of nations

With NAVIC India is set to join a club of global powers (the US, EU, China, and Russia) who control their own navigation satellite system. India has become the third country to have satellite navigation system over south Asia. India no longer needs to rely on foreign based satellite navigation systems.

Regional collaborative partner

It will improve India’s credentials as a regional collaborative partner and will boost South Asian cooperation. The operationalization of NAVIC will have significant implications for the whole of south Asian region. Sharing the benefits of NAVIC with Sri Lanka and Nepal is likely to balance the misgivings harboured by these countries over India’s commitments.

Net security provider

With India can also serve as a net security provider. Net security providers are those states which deploy its surplus national assets for the safety and stability of other countries. This will be especially come in handy during the natural and man-made disasters. Global Positioning System (GPS) is playing a significant role in relief efforts post disasters such as the tsunami in the Indian Ocean region in 2004.

Livelihood and food security

NAVIC allows for easy land-area mapping, yield monitoring and precision-planting of crops. It helps in the development of civic capabilities in food and livelihood security.

Environmental and meteorological monitoring

NAVIC will also act as an instrument of environmental and meteorological monitoring an also in climate research. These studies will help in reducing the devastation caused by the disasters through well-managed disaster relief.

Interoperability with GPS

NAVIC’s interoperability with GPA will help in reducing the technical snags when used complementarily with the already existing GPS-enabled solutions.

No security concerns

Unlike South Asian satellite, NAVIC do not necessitate shared intelligence. So it poses no security concerns. South Asian satellite is being developed by the applications such as telecommunications and broadcasting, tele-education and tele-medicine to the Indian subcontinent and will cover the skies of SAARC members. Pakistan opted out of this venture as it saw it as a compromise to its sensitive information database infrastructure. So, NAVIC will also help in promoting India’s “Neighbourhood First” policy.

Uses for citizens

NAVIC will help an average user in finding road routes and will help in transportation sector. NAVIC signals can be used in monitoring the movements of trains, ships etc. it would make the transportation sector better streamlined, cheaper and cost-effective. Also, NAVIC will also help Women to feel safer as they would be in a position to send distress signal using their mobile phones by 2018.

Superior service

According to ISRO, accuracy of NAVIC will be superior to both the GPS and GLONASS for the South Asian region. While NAVIC makes use of only 7 satellites, the other two makes use of nearly 4 times as many satellites as NAVIC uses. NAVIC will also provide assured signal in its area of coverage.

What are the next steps in operationalizing NAVIC?

The receivers currently manufactured in the country are capable of picking up signals form GPS and GLONASS only. So, for receiving signals from IRNSS a special bit of hardware needs to be integrated in the devices and appliances. With the average lifespan of IRNSS satellites as 9.5 years, ISRO plans to build four more satellites to augment the existing constellation of satellites.

Conclusion

NAVIC should be used to propel technological innovations that will make India in particular and South Asia in general to be less reliant on technological imports from other foreign countries. ISRO has once again proved its technological prowess by developing the satellite navigation system in a record time of 3 years while the Americans and Russians took more than a decade to do the same.