What ISRO is doing to boost the use of NavIC, India’s version of GPS

Source: The post is based on the article “What ISRO is doing to boost the use of NavIC, India’s version of GPS” published in Indian Express on 13th December 2022

What is the News?

To promote the civilian use of ‘NAVigation with the Indian Constellation’ (NavIC), the Indian version of GPS, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will introduce the L1 frequency in all its future satellites.

What is NAVigation with the Indian Constellation(NavIC)?

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What are the changes ISRO is making in NavIC?

The seven satellites in the NavIC constellation currently use two frequencies for providing positioning data — the L5 and S bands. However, most mobile System on Chips(SoCs) and wearable devices support the L1 band.

To overcome this drawback, ISRO announced that new satellites from NVS-01 onwards which are meant to replace these satellites will also have L1 frequency. 

L1 frequency is one of the most commonly used frequencies in the Global Positioning System (GPS), which even the less sophisticated, civilian-use devices such as smartwatches are capable of receiving. 

Thus, with this band, the use of the NavIC in wearable devices and personal trackers that use low-power, single-frequency chips can go up.