NavIC, the Indian GPS

The GPS system used in most places across the world is owned and operated by the US. Given how important GPS is, many countries have developed their own GPS systems so that they are not at the mercy of America turning it off at a time of conflict. This is why Russia, the EU and China developed their own GPS systems. While all those systems are global in the extent of their coverage, Japan created its own system with only Japan as the covered area.

India’s GPS system is officially IRNSS (Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System) but more commonly it is called NavIC (Navigation with Indian Constellation). It was named so since it can also be pronounced as नाविक (sailor or navigator). Its coverage area is limited to India and a region extending 1,500 beyond its borders. (The plan is to eventually have global coverage).

The seeds for this were sown in 1999, during the Kargil war, when the US refused to share GPS data for Kargil. The project was approved in 2006. The ubiquitous of GPS in civilian use thanks to smartphones intensified its importance and probably accelerated the program. NavIC became operational in 2018 – it consists of 8 satellites, with 2 more on standby on the ground and. It is intended for civilian use and also for the military.

Is NavIC just different from the existing GPS in terms of who owns it? Or are there any other differences? Well, the GPS system uses low frequency signals whose velocity varies with atmospheric disturbances. To compensate for this, the US system has to create a model to calculate the offset; and this model needs to be updated periodically. India’s NavIC on the other hand uses dual frequencies (S and L bands), and the delay between the two signals acts as additional information. What information? In simple terms, it eliminates the need for a model (like the GPS) and it also makes the system more precise. How much more precise? NavIC’s accuracy is 5 meters whereas GPS is 20-30 meters.

Wait a minute. If the existing GPS is only 20-30 m accurate, how does it work perfectly for driving directions? At 20-30 m accuracy, shouldn’t we often be finding ourselves on the wrong street? Aha, our smartphones use the signal strength of telecom towers as additional data to get to better accuracy than what raw GPS alone is capable of.

So far, NavIC usage has been limited:

“NavIC is now utilised for tracking and delivering information about natural disasters, providing emergency warning alerts to fishermen travelling into the deep sea where there is no domestic network connectivity, and monitoring public traffic in India.”

But now, the Indian government has demanded that smartphones be made compatible with NavIC by January, 2023. This is not trivial, since it requires hardware changes. Given that most smartphone companies, from Samsung to Xiaomi to Apple already had their next models in the pipeline, they’ve asked for an extension of the January, 2023 deadline to 2025. Negotiations are now under way on the date, but given that China pushed through the same demand on all smartphones sold in China to use the Chinese GPS system (Beidou), I think it is a matter of when (not if) smartphones in India will start using NavIC.