Apple’s new iPhone 15 series was launched on Tuesday at the company’s Cupertino-based headquarters. The new series includes: iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max. At the same time the Cupertino giant has also introduced the new Apple watch series and USB-C functionality Airpods Pro.
Now, in a first Apple has announced that it has added India’s indeginously made navigation feature ‘NavIC’ to it’s iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max models.
The ‘NavIC’ feature has been added for the first time in any of the iPhones till date. However, the Cupertino giant has informed that the feature has not been included in iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus models.
What Is NavIC ?
According to ISRO, to meet the positioning, navigation and timing requirements of the nation, the space agency had established a regional navigation satellite system called Navigation with Indian Constellation (NavIC). NavIC was erstwhile known as Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS).
NavIC is designed with a constellation of 7 satellites and a network of ground stations operating 24 x 7. Three satellites of the constellation are placed in geostationary orbit, at 32.5°E, 83°E and 129.5°E respectively, and four satellites are placed in inclined geosynchronous orbit with equatorial crossing of 55°E and 111.75°E respectively, with inclination of 29° (two satellites in each plane). The ground network consists of control centre, precise timing facility, range and integrity monitoring stations, two-way ranging stations, etc.
NavIC offers two services: Standard Position Service (SPS) for civilian users and Restricted Service (RS) for strategic users. These two services are provided in both L5 (1176.45 MHz) and S band (2498.028 MHz). NavIC coverage area includes India and a region up to 1500 km beyond Indian boundary. NavIC signals are designed to provide user position accuracy better than 20m (2) and timing accuracy better than 50ns (2).NavIC SPS signals are interoperable with the other global navigation satellite system (GNSS) signals namely GPS, Glonass, Galileo and BeiDou.
It’s applications include:
Transportation (terrestrial, aerial and marine)
Location based services
Personal mobility
Resource monitoring
Surveying and geodesy
Scientific research
Time dissemination and synchronisation
Safety-of-life alert dissemination