IIT-Delhi installs India’s first 5G lab

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Delhi has installed Massive Multiple-Input, Multiple-Output (MIMO) lab on campus for standardisation, R&D and manufacturing of 5G equipment. It will be the first of its kind 5G lab in the country and has been set-up at Bharti School of Telecommunication Technology and Management.

Key Facts

The lab will serve as 5G base station prototype that will be used to test and verify algorithms and also develop complete 5G base station. It will help in manufacturing of 5G base stations in India with support and collaboration from industry. It will also be instrumental in generating skilled manpower in this technology.
In this Massive MIMO lab, several antennas are deployed at prototype base station to allow network to communicate reliably with very large number of mobile terminals simultaneously at same time and on same frequency channel.
The large antenna array also improves system power efficiency as mobile terminals will now be required to radiate 10 times lesser power than in 3G/4G systems. In regular 3G/4G base station technology, only few antennas are deployed.

5G

5G is wireless communication technology based on third-generation partnership project (3GPP). It is next generation mobile networks technology after 4G LTE networks. It is expected to offer enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) through R15 repeaters that can cater to coverage requirements.
The 5G wireless technology will offer far greater upload and download speed i.e. 100 times faster internet data speed than current 4G networks. It has potential to demonstrates spectral efficiency and potential for diversified services such as Internet of Things (IoT) and augmented reality (AR)/virtual reality (VR).
In December 2017, 3GPP had completed first set of 5G New Radio standards. High data speed offered by 5G network will help cloud systems to stream software updates, music, and navigation data to driverless cars. Moreover, it holds the key to growth of artificial intelligence (AI) systems and enhance IoT.

Month: Current Affairs - April, 2018