Finnish telecommunications giant, Nokia, will reportedly set up a robotics lab at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru. To be called the Nokia Centre of Excellence (CoE), the lab will promote research involving network robotics, advanced communication technologies and Artificial Intelligence (AI).
In a press release, Nokia said that the center will foster engagement between academia, start-ups and industry ecosystem partners, and help develop socially-relevant use cases based on 5G and emerging technologies across areas like emergency management, agriculture and industrial automation. The lab will also support and align with the Government’s ‘Start-up India’ initiative, the company said.
According to the company: “Nokia will share its expertise in next-generation network innovations and leverage Nokia Bell Labs’ technical expertise in robot orchestration, robot network controller and human-robot interaction to aid the research and development of the end-to-end use case technology solutions. IISc will engage its cross-disciplinary faculty and researchers, and provide its in-house expertise in algorithms, drones and robotic systems”.
The collaboration will include research on using drones for “remote management of agricultural orchards to promote water conservation and avoid human contact with pesticide”. It will also look at how drones can leverage a 5G-enabled wide-area network to help first responders save lives by quickly accessing affected areas during disaster relief. The CoE will also look at how drones can help predict forest fires.
The center will facilitate close interaction with all the stakeholders of the ecosystem for the exchange of ideas and symbiotic development of end-to-end use cases. It will also host symposia for academia and industry, and organize hackathons for startups, the company said.
