Chinese tech giant Xiaomi is in advanced stages of negotiations with the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) for the development of chipsets supporting Navigation with Indian Constellation (NaviC). NaviC is India’s very own Global Positioning System (GPS) initiative. The announcement was made by an ISRO spokesperson in Bengaluru on Wednesday.
Xiaomi will likely emerge as the first tech company to use NaviC-supported chipsets. The company is likely to use the new NaviC-enabled processors developed by Qualcomm for the venture. According to an earlier statement by ISRO, NaviC is designed to provide accurate location information primarily to Indian users, and areas that lie within 1,500 km from the Indian borders.
During the Indian Mobile Congress back in September 2019, Qualcomm revealed that some of its future chipsets might support NaviC. “Qualcomm has just announced that its upcoming chipset will support NaviC. Xiaomi is believed to be in talks with the American supplier to acquire the chipset for its next smartphones headed to India”, an ISRO spokesperson revealed. Xiaomi is yet to make a formal statement at the time of publication.
NaviC uses a network of seven satellites covering the entire Indian landmass and extending 1,500 km around the borders. It is capable of displaying positional data accurate to 10 meters. NaviC is the operational moniker of the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) and is designed for aerial, terrestrial, and marine navigation, apart from fleet management, vehicle tracking, and disaster management.
NaviC will provide Standard Positioning Service (SPS) to all and Restricted Service (RS) only to authorized users. NaviC is formally approved by international standards organization 3GPP, allowing ISRO to collaborate with Qualcomm.
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