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Singha wrote:+1 to that. as I mentioned the only way to make sure people develop apps and things for it is make it mandatory for all smartphones sold in india beyond a certain date to carry the IRNSS signal. india is now the worlds 2nd or 3rd largest smartphone market.
GOI simply has no clue how to leverage the market.
Singhaji,
How does the use of IRNSS over GPS benefit the aam Abdul in India? I mean other than the fact that that it Indian, is there any specific advantage?
The only thing that I can think of is that the the phone/device manufacturers have to pay some royalty to the US gov for the usage of the signals. However due to the sheer number of devices that use GPS nowadays, I don't suppose that's the situation.
Edit: I see suryag has already asked a similar question.
SuryaG/Merrill., More than the license cost (it is costly)., the NIST/FCC testing and certification is a costly process for new device to be designed and introduced. In fact there are "design houses" which does only the design and a proof of concept demo'ed, tested and certified. Rest of the manufacturers actually license that and get their final product tested and introduce in market.
So how much cost? My guesstimate is that it is in 1000s of dollars. Let us say 50k USD that translates to 30 lakhs Rs. Now will that be the cost for getting an IRNSS device tested and certified in India? I think it will be around 3-4 lakhs. It does change the equation.
Singha, for the cellphones, the receivers are cued to a particular frequency and the rest is all software. So making it mandatory is not the problem., the problem is will it be used by the politicos to track their adversaries.
Right now the smartphones have built in GPS because the GPS receivers used are available at throwaway cost due to sheer scale of numbers being manufactured. Developing IRNSS specific receivers and incorporating those in cellphones ( or even stand alone GPS receivers for civilian use ) will be at a prohibitive cost. So my gut feeling is that this system will become only as a demo/learning step to demonstrate that we can build our own if required.
We will also show that with just a set of 7 satellites we can have visibility at least 4 to 5 satellites at any given time over a particular sector of Earth.
SSSalvi wrote:Right now the smartphones have built in GPS because the GPS receivers used are available at throwaway cost due to sheer scale of numbers being manufactured. Developing IRNSS specific receivers and incorporating those in cellphones ( or even stand alone GPS receivers for civilian use ) will be at a prohibitive cost. So my gut feeling is that this system will become only as a demo/learning step to demonstrate that we can build our own if required.
We will also show that with just a set of 7 satellites we can have visibility at least 4 to 5 satellites at any given time over a particular sector of Earth.
Utilitywise I don't see any use.
I am not sure why in one para we are so dismissive of GOI and basically declaring IRNSS dead on arrival., just because we have cheap GPS in our phones already? Or are you saying it is meant only for "specialized" users like defence and no commercial benefit?
I am not a pessimist as far as Indian Space Tech in concerned. But still ...
IRNSS receivers will not be a viable commercial operation due to lack of volume v/s cost of development.
I was part of a team which attempted our first GPS receiver from the first principles in 70s and we budgeted it around 30 lakhs ( in those days ) and the size was similar to the large metal trunk that we see our jawans carrying when they move out on posting with families.
Now because of technological advances it can be achieved in a single chip and because the volume is large the cost is a few thousand rupees. But still the development cost will remain ( in my opinion ) 20-30 lakhs and unless there is volume common user can't afford it and no cellphone manufacturer would dare to incorporate it in his new model because the users are captive to a certain area and the receivers would be useless once you cross that zone.
And what more does the user gain by this new system?
Surely US can't shut off the current GPS.. whole world and every sector is dependent on it.
Yes as I said we will prove that YES, WE CAN ( Sorry I mean India context not O..ma's ) .. but more than that it has no utility.. even militarily do we have any utility ... perhaps our defense expert dadas can throw some light on this aspect.
@ aditya ji,
Uncle can't stop us from developing the system .. no way.
The main usefulness is military. US GPS has two signals, one for civilian and another military. The military one is more precise and not available to anyone.
Also it is in our own best interest to have a substitute to GPS. Europe, Russia, China and Japan also have their own localized 'gps' navigation ( GLONASS and such )
I remember reading an interview with a Russian general that during the Georgia war, the GPS was deliberately offset by 300 km. I'm not immediately able to find the article, so I could be mistaken.
yes even the civilian GPS which the russians were probably using was offset by 300m to prevent use for precision munitions. it was later the Rus started launching bunches of GLONASS to give near-global coverage now. the episode sure put winds under their feet.
likewise we not only do not have the 3ft accuracy mil-grade signal but even the civilian signal can be degraded selectively by its owner at will.
there is a reason why ICBMs that fly up to the edge of space use internal INS and star sensors....once they leave the launch tube they absolutely cannot depend on any other external source and must assume such sources to be destroyed, degraded or spoofed.
thats why all this talk of ground based stations in india supplying some 'corrections' to our inflight Agni series makes me dhoti shiver and hide under table. suppose the first strike by the enemy itself targets these locations, what then?
The US can selectively shut off or offset the signals in any particular part of the world if they so desire. In the Indo-Pak war / context they can do so to save their Paki munnas. This is why an Indian system is important for military purposes. Don't see it being used much in the civilian context unless the receivers can be made cheaply enough to compete with GPS receivers and the only way that can be done is if the Indian Govt. mandates that all devices using GPS must also have an Indian receiver built in just like how Russia has mandated Glonass for GPS usage in Russia. Would increase the price to Indian consumers but will benefit the country overall.
Can someone compare side by side GPS vs IRNSS? and also from receiver specifications, and see how easily we could tweak a GPS receiver design and get it going for IRNSS receiver. I am thinking, the receiver can't be way too different, some logic, algo changes perhaps.
i dont think the technology is all that difficult - receiver and software time signal decoder and look up of sat position in a table from predicted orbit. the hard part is getting your sats up there in the first place
In fact we could be app based.. in the sense having MS type HAL layer to deal with hardware, and they could keep upgrading via changes for encryption, decryption standards like aes-256 etc. so, as long as the device can be interfaced and plugged in, they could offer any advanced service from the basic handshakes and protocols. it all depends on how they architect the solution.
4 is a minimum...with 3 you are left with two choices..try the exercise as a simple geometric puzzle of intersection of hollow spheres...the surface being the wave-front.
Anyways, it is more than that simplistic view. If General Relativity was not discovered or understood, the whole scheme would not work still.
For many centuries the sun and stars position guided humans to navigate the sea and travel the land. Even today, migratory birds take help from the ‘sky’ in their long-distance flight. Subsequently, the magnetic compass and the sextant assisted travel. But the real revolution in navigational techniques happened during the sixties with the invention of the space navigational system by the US military, famously known as the Global Positioning System (GPS).
Almost after fifty years of the GPS, the Indian space agency ISRO is found making great strides in the navigational field. On July 1, 2013, ISRO successfully launched its first navigational satellite Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS-1A) into the geosynchronous orbit and plans to develop a constellation of seven satellites with a possible addition of four more satellites later. India is expected make IRNSS fully operational by 2015.
For any space navigational system to successfully undertake global operations it has to develop a constellation of a minimum of 24 to 26 satellites. However, India is developing a regional system with 7 to 11 satellites based on the region’s requirement. Normally, GPS satellites are positioned in the Medium Earth Orbit (MEO), around 20,000 km above the earth’s surface. The IRNSS, however, is unique as three satellites will be in the geostationary orbit (36,000 km above the earth’s surface) and four satellites in the inclined geosynchronous orbit.
The GPS is a Cold War creation. One of the basic purposes behind developing this system was to assist the US submarines to launch a missile attack on a target with minimum error. Now, the GPS is used in the civil aviation and shipping sector as well as in fields like geodesy, cartography, land and water resources management, etc. For many years the GPS remained mainly a military gizmo with limited civilian utility. It was only after May 2000, when the US turned off the Selective Availability Feature (intentional degradation of the GPS signal), that the GPS market grew rapidly, particularly in the transportation sector. Presently, various GPS features in the civilian domain are available with reasonable accuracy. Increase in the market volume also lead to lowering of prices both for hardware and software. During 2012, the volume of global navigation market exceeded 80 billion dollars. Interestingly, the defence market share is approximately only 2% of the entire volume.
Irrespective of a small volume, the GPS has critical defence utility. The volume of market in the defence sector should not be viewed in ‘isolation’ as an indicator of its defence utility. As such in the civilian area there are far too many customers globally while in the defence sector very few countries are the actual users of GPS technology. All modern day state-of-art defence equipments are dependent on space navigation technology. The GPS is important not only for the operations of military platforms like ships, aircrafts and tanks but also for accurate targets. The modern day war fighting concepts like network centric warfare are feasible only if the space based navigational aids are available.
The US does, however, allow for accessibility of the GPS facility mostly for civilian purposes but the quality of signal made available is always in a degraded profile. Such signal is of no use for military purposes. In the case of the IRNSS, the position accuracy is expected to be in range of 15 to 20 meters while the GPS provides a signal approximately with 36 meters accuracy.
IRNSS is expected to provide various applications which include terrestrial, aerial and maritime navigation; disaster management; assisting hikers and travellers; vehicle tracking and fleet management; and providing visual and voice navigation for drivers which can be also integrated with the mobile phones.
One of the biggest advantages of the IRNSS, once the system gets fully operational, is to reduce the dependency on the GPS. This would make India largely self-sufficient in navigational arena. Currently, India also uses the Russian system called Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS). ISRO has also developed a GPS supported geo-augmented navigation system (GAGAN) to assist the navigation of civilian air traffic over Indian airspace. It is expected that after both these systems become fully operational a potential synergy between IRNSS and GAGAN would evolve.
Recently, the US Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit to India for the Strategic Dialogue and the resultant joint statement issued on June 24 mentions that both India and the US willl take measures to ensure the compatibility-interoperability between the US GPS and the IRNSS. While not completely dismissing the GPS, there are two specific limitations in the Indian context. First, owing to the degraded signal or due to ‘selective denial’ of the services, defence activities do suffer. Second, there are some ‘dead zones’ (no signal) within the country where geographic limitations do hamper signal strength and quality. The IRNSS is expected to overcome both these difficulties.
In the field of global navigation, China has already made significant progress with its COMPASS (Beidou) system. China proposes to develop a global system consisting of 35 satellites and is already half way through. The system has been declared operational for the Asia-Pacific region. Importantly, the Chinese have committed to provide Pakistan with a ‘military quality’ signal.
India’s entry into the field of space navigation was much awaited. It is expected that ISRO will be able to launch the remaining six satellites within the next two years and operationalise the system to its full potential. Once up and running, the system is expected to meet India’s defence and security requirements and also offer various social and commercial benefits.
GAGAN is defined as an augmented implementation of GPS, and since we only have civilian GPS signal with an accuracy of 36 meters yet GAGAN is credited with an accuracy of 3 meters aganist a specification of 7.6 meters
The above article states an accuracy of 15 to 20 meters for IRNSS, would that mean now GAGAN can have better accuracy? Does the compatibility-interoperability between GPS and IRNSS imply that?
if GAGAN gets better accuracy i.e., better than 3 meters, can we have our own JPALS equivalent?
The Joint Precision Approach and Landing System (JPALS) is a military, all-weather landing system based on real-time differential correction of the GPS signal, augmented with a local area correction message, and transmitted to the user via secure means. The onboard receiver compares the current GPS-derived position with the local correction signal, deriving a highly accurate three-dimensional position capable of being used for all-weather approaches via an ILS-style display. While JPALS is similar to Local Area Augmentation System, but intended primarily for use by the military, some elements of JPALS may eventually see their way into civilian use to help protect high-value civilian operations against unauthorized signal alteration.
^^^
Thanks SSridhar, with IRNSS will GAGAN's accuracy get any better to allow CAT 3 landings? the JPALS has 1 meter and better accuracy while EGNOS is the European equivalent for the civilian aviation market
Airbus's modified A300-600ST transporters are set to become the first large type to be approved for satellite-based approaches using the new European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS).
France's Pau Pyrénées airport became the first in Europe to conduct landing operations with a new accurate safety-of-life vertical guidance signal, made available on 2 March.
The European Space Agency says the A300-600STs' certification flights for the approaches are due to begin this spring.
"Airbus Transport became interested because their aircraft go to smaller runways that are not always [instrument landing system]-equipped," says France's directorate general of civil aviation. "They use Pau for training."
Eurocontrol has fitted the A300-600STs with the required equipment and supported development of the initial approach procedure through its EGNOS Pioneers scheme.
"Pilots don't need much retraining as EGNOS works is much the same way as the current ILS," the DGAC adds.
French authorities aim to implement EGNOS capabilities at regional airports, including Clermont-Ferrand, Marseilles - where Eurocopter performs helicopter certification work - and Le Bourget, which should be equipped before the Paris air show.
"Before a suitably equipped aircraft can perform EGNOS-based approaches to any runway, a dedicated approach procedure has to be published," says the DGAC, adding that 100 airports in France should be EGNOS-capable by 2020.
"From the point of view of navigation strategy we see many benefits, notably improving safety on smaller runways where no vertically-guided approach is available."
GAGAN is designed to augment GPS, not augment IRNSS (at least that's my understanding). And if anything GAGAN may augment IRNSS not the other way around.
vasu raya wrote:^^^
the JPALS has 1 meter and better accuracy
During the Technology demonstration phase, GAGAN achieved an accuracy in the horizontal plane of less than 1m and slightly over 1m in the vertical plane. But, we have to remember that being in the equatorial region (while WAAS or EGNOS or the Japanese MSAS are not) India faces challenges that those countries do not.
"Airbus Transport became interested because their aircraft go to smaller runways that are not always [instrument landing system]-equipped," says France's directorate general of civil aviation. "They use Pau for training."
Eurocontrol has fitted the A300-600STs with the required equipment and supported development of the initial approach procedure through its EGNOS Pioneers scheme.
"Pilots don't need much retraining as EGNOS works is much the same way as the current ILS," the DGAC adds.
If the same system is adopted by India using IRNSS then Potential for military is huge. There are many such airfields and Helipads in India where night landings are not possible. May be it could be used by our UAVs also and operate from these airfields.
Think of Opps Cactus type scenarios too. No need to call the ground control to flash runway lights. Special forces could land even if ATC is not in control of friendlies.
Shrinivasan wrote:^^^ What are these challenges due to our proximity to the equator?
Acharya wrote:ditto
A major source of error in GPS/IRNSS etc would be the effects of the ionosphere on the signal leading to signal delay, multiple paths etc thereby degrading accuracy. This effect is particularly severe at lower lattitudes around the equator where the total electron content in the ionosphere can vary unpredictably, seasonally etc. They are more stable in higher lattitudes. So, the models developed for error correction to signals by those countries cannot be applied in our case. We have therefore developed our own models and algorithms.
Its know that Indian Military already has access to Mil Grade accuracy via GLONASS and a deal was already signed to the effect , IRNSS when fully operational would become dual source for Military
No need to call the ground control to flash runway lights. Special forces could land even if ATC is not in control of friendlies.
The C-130Js should be able to do that even now - in total blackout. For operating in blackout conditions there is a need for being able to "see" both outside and inside the plane. The C-130Js also perform low level precision flying in blackout conditions.
No need to call the ground control to flash runway lights. Special forces could land even if ATC is not in control of friendlies.
The C-130Js should be able to do that even now - in total blackout. For operating in blackout conditions there is a need for being able to "see" both outside and inside the plane. The C-130Js also perform low level precision flying in blackout conditions.
So, that capability already exists. Where the IRNSS can help out is given the fact that it is a total Indian system - so less chances of being fooled, etc.
Besides I do not think the US will play games with India in the event of a war - even with Pakistan. The two militaries are fairly deep into discussions for common procurement (CSPAN-3 had a very brief news spread on this just yesterday - from the Pac chief). The two nations - militarily - are too close and the cost too high for the US to play pranks.
I am sure that India and the US have come a long way since the days of denial of spare parts for Sea King helicopters or destruction of the triggers used in 1993 Mumbai blasts or even non-return of the Tejas FBW specs etc. No doubt, we have successful military-to-military exchanges, programmes and joint exercises for almost a decade now. But, we can never predict the behaviour of nations, much less the US. Again, its behaviour could be different depending upon with whom we go to war, China or Pakistan. The Pentagon and the State Department do not always agree, a usual disagreement between defence and diplomacy in any country. I believe that a country of the size of India cannot depend on another power for such a crucial piece in the armoury.
Main reason for irnss is perhaps because US can turn off or degrade the accuracy of gps over a given area at any time it wishes. That's what it did during the gulf War - the US military has backdoor access to gps with military grade accuracy for military equipment.
Europeans realized they did not want to be hostage to the Americans and decided to put up their gallileo. They rather their Airbus planes not be dependent on gps alone nor can they build fleet management infrastructure with some other country having its finger on the off switch.
As to why India is involved in practically all (glonass, gallileo, irnss) at great cost I don't understand. Gagan correction for gps looks like a stop gap measure and those satellites were developed by Lockheed Martin for India.
glonass is insurance policy for military use perhaps. Gallileo maybe cause the Chinese too put in a few hundred million. Besides the Indian system does not have a global reach.
But, we can never predict the behaviour of nations
[Badly OT]
On the contrary. It is perhaps one of the most predictable things - in fact a whole lot is negotiated (Kargil??). What is unpredictable is the risks taken by parties associated with such predictable items.
[\Badly OT]
As I posted earlier, IRNSS allows India to sleep well. But as we type I would be more scared of Putin than USSD. Or at least there should not be too much of a diff between the two - one that was very badly skewed in one way just 5-10 years ago.
OK, moving along ....................................
