With the prestigious Gagan project expected to be rolled out by the civil aviation ministry early this year, India plans to use it as a 'goodwill gift' by offering it to neighbouring countries, as a strategic move to counter China's influence.
Prime minister Narendra Modi recently held meetings with high-ranking officials from Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) and Airports Authority of India (AAI) to discuss the possibilities of taking the services across the border.
Gagan, which stands for GPS Aided Geo Augmented Navigation, is a satellite-based navigation system which provides autonomous, high precision geo-spatial location information of the user in terms of latitude, longitude and height along with velocity and time. It covers large areas of airspace formerly not served by other navigational aids and its benefits extend beyond aviation — to all modes of transport, including maritime, highways and railroads. Furthermore, it can also be used in surveying, precision farming, more robust localisation monitoring which is expected to provide better control and support to law enforcement agencies and enhanced town-planning management.
The AAI, which is developing the project in collaboration with Isro, later plans to commercialise the service. "Being in the Asia Pacific region, India wants to be a leader in the technology," said CR Sudhir, executive director, Communication Navigation and Surveillance (operation management), which provides infrastructure to Air Traffic Control.
According to AAI officials, Gagan will redefine navigation over Indian region and it may soon be used as the sole means of navigation system, eventually replacing most, if not all, of the costly ground-based infrastructure in the coming years. Once implemented, Gagan would make India only the fifth country in the world to have a similar system after US, Russia, China and the European Union. "What the US is doing presently with 27 satellites, we will be doing with just seven," said AS Ganeshan, programme director, satellite navigation programme, Isro, to a gathering of aviation industry insiders during a seminar held recently in Bengaluru to discuss indigenisation of air navigation infrastructure in India.
The system is currently being pilot tested in Chennai airspace and will be extended to the entire Indian region, once it gets the approval from aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). A master control room has been set up in Bengaluru while 15 reference stations have been constructed across different locations of the country which collect measurement data and broadcast message from all the GPS and GEO satellites in view and forward them to the control centre.
The importance of the project for non-aviation benefits can be gauged from the fact that the Indian Railways has tied up with Isro to help it in developing technologies for anti-collision and other uses. In a meeting held on December 16, Railway minister Suresh Prabhu directed the Railway Board to explore the use of geo-spatial technologies for this purpose. In fact, Konkan railways, which passes through tough terrains, has approached Isro separately for the same, said the senior bureaucrats involved in the development of the project. "General managers should think of new and innovative methods to reduce accidents and make railway operations safer," Prabhu said referring to the new initiative during a conference on December 30.
The deaths at unmanned level crossings is another problem of the railways. Railway ministry officials said by imbibing the latest satellite technologies, an alert message will be flashed automatically in the mobile phones of all the road users who are in the vicinity of an Unmanned Level Crossing (UMLC) about the approaching train. Insiders in the ministry claim that with the use of such technologies, accidents at UMLCs may be minimised/controlled to a large extent.
Gagan's operational benefits (Aviation)
Provides opportunity to cover very large areas of airspace
Increases capability, flexibility and it's a cost-effective navigation option than the ground-based navigation aids
Offers higher safety and seamless transition between different areas
Provides for reduction in fuel consumption
Gagan's operational benefits (non-aviation)
Benefits extend beyond aviation to all modes of transportation, including maritime, highways and railroads
Benefits also extend to applications such as surveying, precision farming, mobile applications
More robust localisation and monitoring enables better control and support to law-enforcement agencies
Limitaion of current technology
Stand alone GPS/Glonass cannot satisfy the integrity, accuracy and availability requirements of all phase of flight, particularly for the more stringent precision approaches
Integrity is not guaranteed since all satellites may not be satisfactorily working all the time
Time to alarm could be from minutes to hours and there is no indication of quality of service
Accuracy is not sufficient. The vertical accuracy for 95% of the time is less than 10 meters
For GPS/Glonass standalone systems availability and continuity are not assured
Navigational satellite systems in operation
Global Positioning System (GPS) of USA
Global Navigation Satellite System (Glonass) of Russia
Beidou/Compass of China, 14 satellites operational, still expanding
Galileo of the European Union, 4 satellites operational, full constellation by 2020
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