Indian NavIC Is More Accurate Than GPS And It Is Coming To The PublicThis Year

Started as a project of the US Department of Defence back in 1973, GPS was made available for civilian use in the 1980s. India has been working to make its own system since 2013 and it is finally ready to be used by the public.

It is known as NAVigation with Indian Constellation (or NavIC for short) and NavIC for public use will be out in the first six months of 2020.

When it comes to NavIC vs GPS, the former seems to be more advanced. It is able to offer location information of 10-meter accuracy, as opposed to 20 to 30-meter accuracy of GPS, according to the Space Application Centre based in Ahmedabad.

The easiest way for consumers to have the system in mobile is to use a smartphone supporting it. Qualcomm has been preparing for NavIC as this week, it introduced three new mid-range chips with support for the system. Upcoming Realme and Xiaomi handsets will feature one of these chipsets.

The chips can work with the Global Navigation Satellite Systems - dual-frequency - L5 (1.17 GHz) and L1 (1.58 GHz). NavIC supports L5 band S-band (2.5 GHz).

To check whether yours can work with dual-frequency GNSS, you can use an app called GPSTest. Some existing chips do have this ability, including Qualcomm Snapdragon 855, Huawei Kirin 990, and Snapdragon 855. However, these companies have not said anything about whether they can update the firmware to make them work with NavIC.

NavIC covers the landmass of India and an extension of 1,500 km around the land, thus making it an ideal tool for fishermen to determine where they are.

The system will be of great help for delivery services in a country with a complex road system and frequent congestion like India.

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