How NavIC aims to become a global navigation tool

The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) on Monday launched NVS-01, the first second-generation navigation satellite series, NavIC or NAVigation with the Indian Constellation - ostensibly India's answer to Global Positioning System (GPS)

- Soumya Pillai

NEW DELHI: While NavIC is an independent stand-alone navigation satellite system, currently operating on a regional scale, the Indian government has clarified its stand on developing it as a global satellite navigation system, on par with the US’s GPS, Russia’s GLONASS, Europe’s Galileo and

China’s BeiDou, in coming years.

In its present status, NavIC is competing with QZSS from Japan, which also targets only the Japanese and neighbouring regions.

South Korea, which currently uses GPS, is also working to construct a satellite-based augmentation system (SBAS), which could help in accelerating the development of self-driving technology such as autonomous vehicles and drones in that country. Because of its strict security policies of mapping data and its strained political relations with its neighbouring country, North Korea, South Korea has not allowed Google to store its locational data on a foreign server, thus restricting the use of Google Maps in the country.

Even though South Korea has local mapping services including Naver, Kakao, and T Map for regional navigation, these are often not very tourist friendly since they are primarily in Korean language. But South Korea aims to establish its own navigation service by 2035, further reducing positioning errors to the centimetre level.

What is NavIC?

To meet positioning, navigation and timing requirements of India, Isro established a regional navigation satellite system called NavIC, earlier known as the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS).