CHENNAI: Not deterred by the malfunctioning of one of the NavIC (Navigation with Indian Constellation) satellites, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is getting set for commercial roll out of ‘desi’ GPS in the second quarter of next year. The crucial miniaturisation of chipsets that go into wireless devices such as cell phones and wifi receivers has been achieved by the ISRO.
One of the important elements for NavIC is the user receivers. User receivers are dedicated for finding user position using NavIC satellite signals.
The Space Application Centre (SAC) is responsible for development of NavIC user receiver. The technology for this is already available with SAC in a larger form. For mass applications like vessel tracking, vehicle tracking etc a smaller factor, low power and low cost receiver was needed.
As per different applications, two different kinds of hardwares are required—digital and RF (radio frequency) front end. “Our semiconductor laboratory (SCL) in Chandigarh has developed the digital hardware and tested it. Now, the RF front end hardware is expected to hit the markets next month,” said Tapan Misra, director of Ahmedabad-based SAC.
Initially, ISRO invited the industry to design and develop the chipsets. However, there was little interest shown because of high investment costs.