Your location, now 100x more precise: Airtel’s high-precision GPS could change how India maps, drives and delivers

Bharti Airtel’s enterprise arm, Airtel Business, said on Tuesday it has partnered with US-based Swift Navigation to launch India’s first cloud-based precise positioning service that promises centimetre-level accuracy.

The Airtel-Skylark Precise Positioning Service, powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning, will deliver location accuracy up to 100 times better than standard global navigation satellite systems (GNSS), the company said in a statement.

The service, which integrates Swift Navigation’s Skylark technology with Airtel’s pan-India 4G and 5G network, is expected to support a wide range of industries, including transportation, logistics, utilities, emergency response, autonomous vehicles, digital mapping, toll collection, railways, and precision agriculture.

“In a country like ours, with intricate lanes and bylanes, every centimetre makes a difference in identifying a precise location or address, especially for critical services like first responders,” said Sharat Sinha, director and CEO of Airtel Business.

“This breakthrough technology will not only revolutionise emergency responses and set new benchmarks for industrial applications but will also fast-track innovations in use cases like autonomous mobility and satellite-based toll collections,” he added.

• The technology promises precise fleet management, route optimisation and reliable arrival-time predictions, including for drones and delivery robots.

• In construction and utilities, it could enable worker safety, accurate mapping and quicker emergency response.

• Railways could deploy the system to enhance safety and train control, while farmers may use it for precision agriculture to optimise seeding, spraying and irrigation.

• The service also has potential in fitness wearables, digital mapping and last-mile delivery in congested cities.

The first phase of deployment will cover 35,000 square kilometres around the National Capital Region later this year, with a nationwide rollout to follow.

Swift Navigation, headquartered in San Francisco, develops precise-positioning technology for automotive, mobile, industrial and consumer applications.

Airtel, India’s second-largest telecom operator by subscribers, has been expanding beyond connectivity into digital services including cloud, data centres, cyber security and Internet of Things (IoT) solutions.