OdishaPlus Bureau
Nokia on Tuesday announced its collaboration with the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bengaluru to set up a network robotics laboratory on 5G and emerging technologies. As per the company’s statement, the Nokia Centre of Excellence (CoE) for Networked Robotics will promote interdisciplinary research involving robotics, advanced communication technologies and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to develop use cases across areas like emergency management, agriculture and industrial automation.
It will also promote engagement and cooperation between academia, start-ups and industry ecosystem partners in research and development of use cases.
Professor G Rangarajan, Director, IISc said, “Collaboration with a global technology leader, Nokia, will go a long way in helping our students to gain knowledge and insights and make significant contributions to the development of innovative and societally relevant 5G use cases.” He also said, “This is a critical initiative and it will help us move closer to finding technology-powered solutions to enrich our lives.”
Some of the use cases which the collaboration will explore include using drones for remote management of agricultural orchards to promote water conservation and avoid human contact with pesticide.
The researchers will also explore other use cases such as drones using a 5G-enabled wide-area network to gather situational information, helping first responders to save lives by quickly accessing the affected areas during disaster relief and drones for applications such as anticipating crop fires.
“Emerging technologies such as the 5G have potential to enable an entirely new array of use cases with a profound societal impact,” said Sanjay Malik, Senior Vice President and Head of India Market, Nokia. “With Nokia’s rich innovation heritage, we aim to engage with the bright and young minds at IISc to nurture and advance the latest technologies that can benefit communities. We are confident that it will lead to the development of ground-breaking use cases.”
