5 GPS Alternatives You Should Know

GPS has become the de-facto medium and almost synonymous with the Global satellite navigation organisation(GNSS). Part of the reason is that GPS is the oldest navigation system. Information technology was started in 1978 by the US Defence. However, there are other navigation systems besides like GLONASS, BeiDou, Galileo, Quasi-Zenith and the recently announced NavIC past India. And then in this article, nosotros accept a look at all the GPS alternatives in peachy detail and compare them point past betoken. We have talked about the coverage, accuracy, orbital acme, and many other things that define a satellite navigation system. At present without farther ado, permit's go through the list of GPS alternatives.

Top GPS Alternatives in 2020

i. NavIC

While NavIC is quite new in the realms of satellite navigation systems, it's nonetheless very promising. NavIC, in case y'all don't know, is an indigenous satellite navigation organization built by Bharat for its region and adjoining neighbors. We have written a detailed explainer on NavIC in a separate article and discussed how it's improve than GPS so go ahead and read the article to get a amend thought. Anyway, unlike GPS which is a global navigation satellite system, NavIC, on the other hand, is a regional navigation satellite organisation.

Constellation of NavIC Satellites / Source: ISRO

Essentially, it means that GPS covers the whole globe for location positioning whereas NavIC covers primarily India and some neighboring regions. Having said that, NavIC is relatively ameliorate than GPS in terms of accuracy, at to the lowest degree in India, because the NavIC satellites are always in directly line of sight with India's region. Then to sum up, NavIC is an India autonomous satellite navigation system and it seems a better culling than GPS. Also, India is going to launch at to the lowest degree 5 more satellites in the coming years then that is corking.

ii. GLONASS

If there is i satellite navigation organization that comes shut to GPS in terms of coverage and accuracy so it'south definitely GLONASS. Information technology'southward developed and run by Russia and has been in functioning since 1995. GLONASS has a constellation of 24 satellites in comparison to GPS' 31 satellites. For a global navigation satellite organisation to work, you demand more than 20 satellites and Russian federation has maintained the constellation since 2010.

Apart from that, both GLONASS and GPS have almost the same orbital summit and period so, in some sense, both are somewhat identical. Every bit for the accuracy, GLONASS has a location precision of v-x meters which is great and very like to GPS' four-7 meters. Of course, the location gets much better with the help of local cellular triangulation. All in all, GLONASS is a capable satellite navigation arrangement by Russia and it's 2nd only to GPS.

3. BeiDou

BeiDou is a global navigation satellite system like to GPS and it's run by China. The project was get-go launched in the year 2000 to develop a GPS alternative for its users. However, the number of satellites was only 2 so the coverage was extremely express and accuracy was off the marking. So in 2012 and 2015, China later on launched 10 and 15 satellites into the Earth's orbit making the constellation much larger.

And post-2015, China has sent vii more satellites taking the constellation to 33 operational satellites. And so in terms of coverage, BeiDou is almost cervix and neck with Us' GPS. Apart from that, the accuracy is said to be three-5 meters which is first-class and can besides provide 10cm of location precision merely that'south restricted for war machine use. All I can say is, BeiDou is as good as GPS and a potential alternative to GPS without any dubiousness.

iv. Galileo

Since major countries had their own satellite navigation systems, the European Marriage decided to develop its indigenous GNSS. They started the development in 2005 and finally, in 2016, the Galileo constellation was live. To brand it articulate, Galileo is a global navigation satellite system just like GPS and GLONASS. As of now, the constellation has 22 operational satellites rotating effectually the World. European union is likewise trying to increase the satellite numbers to 30 past the end of this twelvemonth.

5 GPS Alternatives You Should Know — Source: Wikipedia

In terms of working mechanism, both GPS and Galileo are almost on the aforementioned plane, but slightly higher in altitude. Having said that, Galileo has suffered some bug with Diminutive clocks and weak signals in the past few years so there is that. To sum upwardly, Galileo is another global navigation satellite system that is going to go better after information technology reaches Total Operational Adequacy (FOC) in 2020 and thereafter, information technology will become a solid culling to GPS.

5. Quasi-Zenith

The Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS) is a regional satellite navigation system developed past Japan and it'due south very similar to India'due south NavIC. QZSS is also called Michibiki in the Japanese linguistic communication and information technology has a constellation of four satellites. Nihon started the project in 2010 and rolled out the service for public use in 2018. Similar to GPS, the objective of Quasi-Zenith is to provide highly precise and stable positioning services in Japan and parts of the Asia-Oceania region. While Japan has seen dull development of its satellite navigation system, they are committed to launching seven more satellites by 2023.

And similar to NavIC, QZSS also follows the same principle of 'direct line of sight at all times' in sync with Japan'south co-ordinates. It has deployed its satellites in both geostationary and geosynchronous orbit to ensure that at to the lowest degree one of the satellites is visible over Japan at all times. And then to conclude, Japan'due south QZSS is nowhere almost United states of america' GPS, but it holds a lot of promise and we hope for a bigger expansion before long.

The 5 Best GPS Culling Systems

So those are the 5 GPS alternatives that accept been developed by Russia, China, India, European Union, and Japan. As I said above, at that place are only a handful of countries who accept invested in building their indigenous satellite navigation systems and it's mainly for self-dependency during aerial attacks, submarine, and terrestrial state of war. 1 more matter to note here is that users cannot cull which GNSS arrangement they can utilize. Information technology all depends on the smartphone hardware and navigation apps that they are using. So, keep that in listen. Well that's all from united states of america, let usa know your thoughts on the subject in the comments below.