The Hindu Business Line : ISRO eager to launch Rs 800-cr `satnav' biz

The Rs 800-cr satnav pie
Standard GPS receivers
Navigation software
Chip sets in mobiles
Onboard atomic clocks
Internet connectivity for positioning
Network timing maintenance
GIS maps

(FROM LEFT) Mr K.N. Shankara, Director, ISAC, Mr Praveen Seth, Member (Operation), AAI, and Mr G. Madhavan Nair, Chairman, ISRO, at the ISRO Satellite Centre Industry meet in Bangalore on Tuesday. — K. Gopinathan

Bangalore , July 4

Satellite navigation holds potential for a global business valued at about some Rs 15,000 crore a year.

Today, virtually everyone and every country wants to be involved with satellite navigation (satnav); in India alone, the sector could be a Rs 800-crore proposition by 2010, says Dr Suresh V. Kibe, Programme Director, Satellite Navigation, ISRO/Department of Space.

On the radars of those investing billions in satnav are the downstream retail users ranging from airlines and civil aviation authorities seeking precise landing points to logistics and truck fleet operators, ships, rescue workers, mapping, land survey, precision farming, national security and even a car driver seeking directions.

"You could even be searching on your cell phone for a particular shop in a mall"; such is the huge scope of PNT (positioning, navigation, timing), according to Dr Kibe.

The hardware makers have reason to cheer, too: they will be needed for supplies of receiver sets, chips in mobile handsets, GIS maps, super-precise atomic clocks and more.

So much so that satnav-savvy countries have hogged the L-5 bandwidth — considered the `gold band' for satnav — for emerging uses such as 3G, wi-fi and Wimax and making it scarce for others.

And it's not just the space-faring countries such as US, Russia, Europe, Japan, China or India, even Nigeria has sought L5 for its Nigcomsat project.

"The day is not far when mobile phones will be fitted with navigational systems," Mr G. Madhavan Nair, Chairman of ISRO, told an industry meeting on satellite navigation organised by ISRO on Tuesday.

ISRO is tempting the industry with satnav opportunities in the manufacture of low-cost receivers and PNT chips, software development, installation, research and, eventually, retail applications.

"GNSS (global navigation system) will influence our lives more than any other technological advent... India can become the biggest user of GNSS ," said Dr Surendra Pal, Deputy Director, Digital Communication Area at ISRO. Since 1995, the 28-satellite US GPS and the 24-satellite Russian GLONASS systems control the positioning scene.

Europe is putting up a global Galileo — a 30-satellite, 3-billion system — in 6-8 years to rival GPS.

China is opting for a less expensive, regional COMPASS.

ISRO too is building a Rs 1,420-crore regional satnav constellation, called the Indian Regional Navigation System (INRSS). Mr Nair said, "In six years we will have our own constellation, controlled by us, for accurate signals", in the nick of time.

Thanks to 100 million mobiles, a future set for 3G/4G/multimedia and value additions to phones, Dr Kibe said the PNT servicing in India is waiting to happen.

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