Explained: What is NavIC, developed by ISRO, that the government wants to make mandatory for smartphones

• The iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max come with NavIC integration with the new Apple A17 Pro chipset.
• NavIC is a stand-alone satellite navigation system developed by ISRO.
• The government is now considering making NavIC mandatory for smartphones and other devices.

Navigation with Indian Constellation, also known as NavIC, is a stand-alone satellite navigation system, which is similar to GPS. The Indian government is now considering making it mandatory for smartphones launched in the country.

This comes soon after the recently launched iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max were integrated with NavIC, thanks to the new Apple A17 Pro chipset. This is the first time the iPhone maker has extended support for NavIC to its iPhone models.

What is NavIC

NavIC has been developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). It is a constellation of seven satellites and a network of ground stations operating round the clock. Three satellites of the constellation are placed in geostationary orbit and four satellites are placed in inclined geosynchronous orbit.

NavIC’s coverage currently includes India and around 1,500 km beyond India’s boundaries. NavIC signals are interoperable with the other global navigation satellite system (GNSS) signals namely GPS, Glonass, Galileo and BeiDou. The Glonass system has been developed by Russia, Galileo by the European Union and BeiDou by China.

Calling the inclusion of NavIC on iPhones a significant achievement for the country, the government is considering making it a standard practice that all devices using GPS technology should have NavIC-powered chipsets inside, Minister of State for Electronics and IT, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, said on Thursday.

"We're planning to make it a standard practice that all devices using GPS technology should have NAVIC-powered chipsets or NAVIC chips inside. When you look at the IT PLI scheme this time, it includes incentives for system designers and manufacturers who incorporate Indian-designed chips into their products," said Chandrasekhar.

Interestingly, smartphones powered by chipsets from Qualcomm and MediaTek have supported NavIC for a long time, going back to 2020. Few devices from Android smartphone makers also support NavIC.

India, in its 2021 satellite navigation draft policy highlighted the importance of NavIC and its plans to promote the technology. The government also mentioned that it will work towards “expanding the coverage from regional to global”.

Significance of NavIC for India

The most important driver behind India developing NavIC was to reduce dependency on GPS and other global navigation systems which are controlled by other countries.

For those unaware, the United States which owns and controls GPS prevented India from using the technology during the Kargil war in 1999, making it difficult for India to identify the positions taken by Pakistani troops.

In addition to this, NavIC uses dual bands to offer improved accuracy and positioning. As per ISRO, NavIC is expected to offer a positional accuracy of 5 metres, compared to 20 to 30 metres offered by GPS.

With inputs from IANS.

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