ISRO recently launched a made-in-India GPS in space dubbed the NavIC and had been in talks with chip manufacturers like Qualcomm and Broadcom in order to get them to include support for NavIC alongside GPS, GLONASS etc. And that day is finally here.

ISRO

Qualcomm has released three new chipsets that will come with support for India’s NavIC satellites -- developed by the geniuses at ISRO. NavIC stands to compete against Russia’s GLONASS, European Space Agency’s Galileo and Japan’s QZSS.

Support for NavIC will be seen on Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 720G, 662 and 460. These are budget to mid-tier performing chipsets that will be seen on upcoming budget-friendly smartphones.

NavIC is designed to offer better and accurate GPS readings as opposed to GPS and other satellite positioning services. It focuses only on India. As per ISRO, NavIC offers an accuracy of up to 5 metres. It supports dual-frequency S and L bands as opposed to GPS’s support of only L band.

Recently, NavIC also was designated as ‘allied’ navigational satellite system by the United States Congress at conference report of the National Defense Authorisation Act (NDAA) 2020 where it also designated Russia’s GLONASS and China’s Beidou as ‘non-allied systems.’

Dr K Sivan, chairman, ISRO, said in a statement, “ISRO is satisfied with the efforts of Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. towards incorporating NavIC and we urge OEMs to leverage it for future handset launches in India."

Twitter: ISRO

He further added, "The availability of NavIC across multiple mobile platforms will help enhance the geolocation capabilities of smartphones in the region and bring the benefits of this indigenous solution to Indian consumers for their day-to-day use.”.



NavIC’s space installation was complete in 2016, creating a network of seven navigational satellites as a part of the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) program.

Apart from making GPS on our smartphones better, NavIC will also be be used by the Indian Air Force and military offering surveillance on an encrypted connection. NavIC will also be helpful during disaster management, geodetic data capture, aerial and marine navigation etc.