AHMEDABAD: It’s time we move away from the American Global Positioning System (GPS) and make way for our own desi navigation system — the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System or IRNSS on our mobile phones.

Beginning Thursday, Isro will hold a major meeting in Bangalore involving location and navigation device manufacturers, mobile phone manufacturers and global information system (GIS) technology developers presenting to them the advantages of using the IRNSS technology over the current GPS technology. During the two-day meet, Isro will demonstrate how the seven IRNSS constellation satellites once operational by July next year, will be significantly more accurate than the American GPS system. The meeting will also be attended by senior scientists from Space Application Centre (SAC) Ahmedabad.

Unlike American GPS, Isro is recommending a small additional hardware in handheld devices that can receive S-Band signals from IRNSS satellites and inclusion of a code in the phone software to receive L-Band signals. “Both these L and S band signals received from seven satellite constellation of the IRNSS are being calculated by a special embedded software which reduces the errors caused by atmospheric disturbances significantly. This in turn gives a superior quality location accuracy than the American GPS system,” says a senior Isro official.

IRNSS will provide two types of services, namely, Standard Positioning Service (SPS) for all users and Restricted Service (RS), for defense users.

On Monday, while addressing mediapersons, SAC director Tapan Misra said, “In times of disaster or any other eventuality, we will always want our own navigation system that can serve our own people rather than depending on a foreign navigation system. The Bangalore meeting is significant as representatives from navigation device manufacturing companies will be attending. We are trying to convince them to shift to IRNSS,” says Misra.

India’s fourth IRNSS 1D satellite launched in March this year was important because this completed the minimum number essential for a navigation system. It carried two payloads — one for navigation and other for ‘ranging’ purposes. The navigation payload transmits navigation service signals to users, while the ranging payload satellite has a C-band transponder which helps accurate determination of the range of the satellite. The first three satellites in the series were launched from Sriharikota in July 2013, April 2014 and October 2014.

