Minister of Communications Jyotiraditya Scindia visits the 5G testbed at IIT Madras

This cutting-edge system, part of the Indigenous First-of-its-kind 5G Testbed Project at IIT Madras, gives industry, start-ups, and smaller businesses in India a platform to develop their 5G products

INN/Chennai, @Infodeaofficial

During his visit to the Indigenous first-of-its-kind 5G Testbed Project at IIT Madras, Jyotiraditya M. Scindia, Minister of Communications and Minister of Development of North Eastern Region, Government of India, saw a demonstration of the indigenous 5G Network on campus. The 5G Testbed Project researchers at IIT Madras used base stations and locally produced equipment to show extremely fast connectivity (1 Gbps).

To help Indian start-ups and the industry take the lead in 5G, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) supported a large-scale 5G testbed project at IIT Madras that involved eight R&D institutes. In addition to startups, the Testbed is accessible to business, academia, research centres, and governmental organisations for a range of R&D, product development, and capacity building activities.

IIT Madras and the 5G Testbed researchers have created in-house 5G systems, and they are actively working on creating and building 6G technologies. Additionally, they create Indian intellectual property rights (IPRs) in this important industry and take part in international standardisation initiatives.

After seeing this demonstration, Jyotiraditya M. Scindia, Minister of Communications and Development of the North Eastern Region, addressed the faculty, researchers, and students, saying, “My students, the youth of our country, are at the forefront of India’s technological and economic transformation.” In addition to demonstrating India’s increasing capacity for innovation, projects like the national 5G Testbed Project at IIT Madras are essential to the country’s goal of becoming the third-largest economy in the world. By utilising our youthful talent, we are moving closer to creating an Aatmanirbhar Bharat that is independent and competitive worldwide.

“Indigenous technology manufacturing will be the key driver to India’s economic growth,” Jyotiraditya M. Scindia continued. “It will foster innovation, create employment opportunities, and boost our global stature in critical sectors like telecommunications.” Jyotiraditya M. Scindia also paid a visit to the sophisticated Optical Communication Testbed and the 5G Lab located on the campus of IIT Madras. He also had interactions with the IIT Madras Department of Electrical Engineering staff, researchers, and students as well as the 5G Testbed.

“Higher Educational Institutions have dedicated themselves to Viksit Bharat @ 2047 by exploring and developing New age technologies,” remarked Prof. V. Kamakoti, Director of IIT Madras, in his remarks on the occasion. One such initiative is the 5G project. Our team is undoubtedly motivated to undertake further advanced research and development in the crucial field of next-generation communication technologies as a result of the Hon. Minister of Communications’ visit.

“The Indigenous 5G Testbed project set up the platform for Indian Telecom R&D and start-ups to launch a globally competitive and timely effort to take a lead in 6G technology,” stated Prof. Bhaskar Ramamurthi, National Coordinator, 5G Testbed, and Faculty, Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Madras.

The state-of-the-art 5G infrastructure (hardware and software) created at IIT Madras serves as a foundation for smaller and start-up businesses in India to develop their 5G solutions.
The Minister of Communications, Jyotiraditya M. Scindia, also spoke with researchers from the Pravartak Technologies Foundation’s Centre of Excellence in Wireless Technology (CEWiT) at IIT Madras and with start-ups that were supported by the university that were involved in 5G-related industries, including BigCat and NMS.

Prof. Radhakrishna Ganti of the Department of Electrical Engineering at IIT Madras commented, “The 5G Testbed at IIT Madras is a unique case study of a Government-funded research project being executed by a group of academic institutions wherein the outcome of the research is transferred to organisations for appropriate enhancements,” emphasising the significance of the work being done at this 5G Testbed. This represents a turning point in the history of the Indian telecom sector. In collaboration with other educational establishments, the government, and business, IIT Madras is making additional efforts to showcase India’s leadership in the development and standardisation of 6G technology.

At IIT Madras, Prof. Radhakrishna Ganti oversaw the development of 5G radio technologies. Currently, his team is developing 6G technology. In order to bring modern telecom access and connectivity to remote and rural areas, he led the creation of rural use cases at the International Telecom Union (ITU) and made multiple contributions to international standards bodies. He is well known throughout the world for his work on stochastic geometry for cellular and wireless network analysis.