ISRO provides consultation to Qualcomm on NavIC capability

The Indian Space Research Organisation on Tuesday said it has provided "consultation" to San Diego-based chipmaker Qualcomm towards enabling NavIC capability in their Snapdragon mobile chipset platforms.

The Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS), also called NavIC--Navigation with Indian Constellation--is reportedly on par with US-based GPS, Russia's Glonass and Galileo developed by Europe.

"These chipsets are being released by Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., and the release will help accelerate the adoption of NavIC by smartphone OEMs," ISRO said on its website.

The OEMs can now release any new models for Indian market which are NavIC enabled, thus eventually making NavIC as a standard feature in the upcoming handsets, applications, processors, etc, the space agency said, adding that it will also enhance the geolocation capabilities of smartphones within the coverage region of NavIC.

Recently, ISRO had said, it is in talks with Chinese mobile manufacturer Xiaomi regarding provision of chipsets that can support NavIC.