ISRO has introduced NavIC with seven IRNSS satellites as an autonomous regional navigation system with the objective of offering Positioning, Navigation and Timing services to the users in its service area. Currently in India we use GPS (controlled by USA) in our mobile devices. Russia has introduced GLONASS and China has introduced BeiDou as the navigation systems using their own satellite constellations. These have been made part of the 3GPP Specifications. NavIC from ISRO is a regional navigation system that is better suited for Indian requirements.
For the widespread use of NavIC it is necessary that the services become available on mobile devices. World over mobile devices follow standards created by 3GPP. Therefore, it was imperative to include NavIC system in the relevant specifications of 3GPP at the earliest. The next release of 3GPP specifications (Release 16) are due to be finalised by March 2020.
TSDSI members with inputs from ISRO and Reliance JIO as rapporteur, have successfully introduced NavIC as a work item in the 3GPP RAN plenary meeting held in Newport Beach, CA, USA on 21st September 2019.
Implication is that 4G and 5G devices with NavIC capability can use assisted-NavIC solution in place of or in addition to other constellations. The specifications will be available in March 2020 and TSDSI will adopt these specifications as a TSDSI standard. This success will enable the introduction of chipsets and devices with this feature within 2020. This is a significant achievement for India and TSDSI.
