Indias IRNNS

                               

What is IRNNS


IRNSS, Indian Reginal Navigational Satellite System is a Navigation Satellite System (NSS) , or as you said, our 'own GPS'.

India's regional sattelite navigation sysytem is touted to be 4 times more accurate than GPS owing to it's regional reach.

• 4.1IRNSS-1A
• 4.2IRNSS-1B
• 4.3IRNSS-1C
• 4.4IRNSS-1D
• 4.5IRNSS-1E
• 4.6IRNSS-1F
• 4.7IRNSS-1G

The requirements of this would be underlined as during war conditions, when USA decides to block it's civilian services of GPS.

To be more precise, GPS is the American Global NSS or GNSS.
GLONASS is the Russian GNSS.

Both of them are operational and use ~24 satellites in six orbital planes.

BeiDou and Galileo are the Chinese and European (ESA) counterparts respectively, but as of today, are not completely operational, i.e., they do not cover all of the globe.

Apart from general purpose consumer usage, GPS cannot be utilised by a country as large as India. India has no control over GPS and if it is not accessible (due to a large number of possibilities), all processes or people relying on the same would find themselves helpless.

Importance OF IRNSS for India

1. Navigation: The familiar car or cell phone 'GPS', navigation for ships or boats, fleet management, navigation for aircraft, for hiking and even for other satellites. The pirate problem in Gulf of Aden is an example where knowing the precise location of ships is crucial.

2. Surveying and Town/Construction Planning: Precision pinpointing of geographical locations can be used to set markers. GIS is another use.

3. Disaster Management: Rescue operations can be aided by the IRNSS. Also, techniques are available to detect fault movements and land deformation.

4. Clock Reference: IRNSS can provide synchronised time information.

5. Games and Recreation: Features such as 'Geotagging' of pictures, location based games can be used on NSS devices.

6. Security: As suggested in the question, vehicle tracking, tracking of animals (to avoid clashes like this one: Elephants gore two, one grievously hurt), tracking criminals etc can be done using IRNSS too.

7. Agriculture: Precision agriculture takes into account the soil type, weather and crop and helps in increasing the output.

For a more extensive list, refer to GNSS applications.

Military uses:

• Satellites can be used for precision guiding of missiles, bombs and aircraft.
• Troops can use satellite data to carry out precise wartime or peace keeping operations and can locate themselves and others easily.