Chennai: The Indian Space Research Organisation to give 200 NavIC ((Navigation with Indian Constellation) messaging receivers on a pilot basis to fishermen from Kanyakumari district in Tamil Nadu to know positioning information and to receive alerts during deep sea fishing.
The fishermen from Kanyakumari district and Kerala were recently affected by the Ockhi cyclone which has claimed hundreds of lives from both the states. Several fishermen also still reportedly are missing.
In addition to the navigation services, the NavIC system which is also known as India’s GPS can allow broadcasting of short messages related to weather alerts, forecast and natural disasters such as the earthquake, tsunami and cyclones.
“We have successfully demonstrated the technology. On a pilot basis, we are giving 500 sets Kerala fishermen and 200 sets to Tamil Nadu fishermen. The fishermen from Kanyakumari district will soon receive these sets,” Isro chairman K.Sivan said.
The space organization has announced that it is ready to transfer the technology know-how of NavIC messaging receivers to Indian industries to enable mass production.
He also said it is up to the state and central governments to procure them in the mass scale. The Kerala government has already started the distribution of NavIC messaging receivers to their fishermen.
The receiver in the fishing boats is relatively larger than the size of a soapbox. It transmits raw data over Bluetooth link to the smart phone. An app on a smart device like mobile phone or tablet having Bluetooth connectivity can decode and display the messages for fishermen.
The size of the receiver is little big and it cannot be used in the mobile phones directly. The work to reduce the size of the receiver is also going on
If it can be integrated with the devices like smartphones it can potentially replace the US GPS network in the Indian region as it has the coverage up to 1,500 km from the Indian mainland.
NavIC Satellite Constellation currently has six functioning satellites against the originally planned seven satellites. Isro Satellites Centre director Mylsamy Annadurai said, “The replacement satellite for IRNSS-1A satellite, IRNSS-1I will be launched with the next PSLV rocket. But, four navigation satellites can make the system operational and five satellites could give accurate positioning.”
NavIC will provide standard positioning service to users with a position accuracy of five metres while GPS has a position accuracy of 20-30 metres.
