As the title refers all about NavIC and its importance with navigation systems with respect to worldwide used navigation system GPS and its accuracy rate. Advantages of having NavIC in devices. A brief comparison to other popular location tracking systems. Should you still prefer NavIC over others?
NavIC or India’s first own satellite Navigation System developed with ISRO named Navigation with Indian Constellation along with Indian Regional Navigational Satellite System (IRNSS) in short to operational name as NavIC. NavIC also means Boatman in Hindi. This is an autonomous regional-based satellite system that gives real-time location positioning and timing service. This was deployed in 2013 as first of a kind. Since GPS(Global Positioning System) was from America where India was dependent on this system during Kargil war which happened on 1999 foreign government didn’t give access to the hostile situation in which no proper location sketch or positioning data was handed over to Indian military so India decided to have it’s own satellite and began developing for both civilian and military.
NavIC provides two levels of security which is SPS (Standard Positioning Service) which provides rough location tracking and Restricted service (encrypted) more accurate tracking which is mainly used for military purposes and authorized users. The accuracy of these systems is 1m (3feet and 3 inches) which is provided for public use and is seen in the newly launched snapdragon processor Snapdragon 865AIE, Snapdragon 720G, Snapdragon 662 and Snapdragon 460 supports. The restricted one which is encrypted has an accuracy of 0.1m (3.9 inches) which is more accurate than a single GPS which has an accuracy of 30 cm which is less as compared to other positioning systems available. Initially, old processor is set only to receive L5 band of single frequency the new unveiled processor like 720G handles both L5 and S-band frequency, this just doesn’t mean that Google maps will stop working, just the tracking system changes from GPS to NavIC, but NavIC only covers mostly India and Indian Ocean geographic areas and neighboring countries.
NavIC has an accuracy of 1m to 0.1m and is occupied by 7 satellites which cover an area of 36000 km. The space segment constellation consists of 7 satellites in which 3 are in geostationary and 4 are in geosynchronous orbit. The IRNSS system satellites have an accuracy of 2ns as compared to UTC (Universal Time Constellation) provided by GPS. These include navigation parameters, clock corrections, integrity parameters, and time offsets with respect to UTC and other GNSS text message and earth orientation parameters which are uploaded to spacecraft automatically. The VSAT terrestrial established system links between ground stations with 7.2metre to 11 meters. Signal used by NavIC has a low L5 frequency of 1176.45 MHz and S-band of 2492.028MHz which is very different and does not depend on any model frequency error and is more accurate. The position accuracy is better than 10 on land and 20 meters on the Indian Ocean region with an extension range of 1500km approx. While others like GPS have an accuracy of only 500cm in public with encrypted data of 30cm and have 26 satellites, unlike GPS which is dependent on only L-band. But NavIC has dual frequency bands of L and S. When using only one frequency which passes through atmosphere its velocity changes due to atmospheric disturbances which received frequency will have an error in it and to rectify this error US banks on atmosphere model GPS to assess frequency error and has to update time to time which causes a lot of actual delay and thus measuring the difference in delay of dual frequencies, so this error caused the accuracy rate to fall making NavIC more accurate. Chinese based BDS covers a whole more lot than NavIC but only could benefit China not other countries so in Technology-wise BDS could provide 3.6 m to 2.8 m for public and 10 cm in encrypted, they have planned to make it more accurate to 7 cm in future. Russian based GLONAS S has an accuracy rate of 7.38m to 2.8 m and uses a dual-band frequency of 1602 MHz and L band of 1246MHz vertically ranging ofrom5m to 10m, the timing frame of 100 millimeters per sec with 200ns via CDMA and Japan-based QZSS for public with 10m to 10 cm accuracy. Galileo is owned by the US and Europe which is now used for research and university purposes only.
How is NavIC better than GPS:
GPS is a commonly used positioning system worldwide. GPS based tracking systems have 31 satellites in which 24 of them are required and are operational. GPS is an older system that uses only a signal band frequency at a time which resulted in highly complex calculations. All these satellites are geosynchronous orbit satellites operating at low orbit. Whereas NavIC uses geostationary satellites in higher orbit which results in signals with fewer obstructions and uses dual-band frequency L5 and S-band.
It is more accurate, independent from other frequencies from American based GPS, Chinese based BEIDOU or BDS, Russian based GLONASS which uses CDMA, European based Galileo, and japan based QZSS.
Used for military purposes and locating precise attack bases etc, for command centers to send warnings to a specific area about cyclone warning to ships or fishermen using that system. Now NavIC is a must device for new Vehicles for providing better navigation and location tracking. Navigation for boats and ships, hikers, climbers, automobiles, aircraft navigation, cyclists, visual and voice navigation for drivers, terrestrial Aerial marine navigation, vehicle tracking, fleet management, and precise timing. Other uses are weather predictions, archaeology, surveying and mapping information, social networking, military personal precision, geophysics, geology, mobile satellite communication and emergency services like DMSP (Disaster Management Support Programme) which includes a cyclone and floods mapping & monitoring, landslide mapping & monitoring, agricultural drought, forest fire, earthquakes, extreme weather monitoring and experimental forecasts.
So that was my comparison about positioning systems. Therefore NavIC is a must-have navigation based system in every smartphone Industry and Vehicles launched in India as to give more precise data and location accuracy, why use other systems like GPS which each of our locations are sent to the US system servers and a copy is sent to the device, why should we reveal our locations to the US operated GPS based android phone where NavIC provides more accurate information of your location than other frequencies based system.
Originally published at https://www.khabartechki.com.
