GUWAHATI: The Union Ministry of Communications has requested the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati to provide support for 5G communications and other vital technologies. Minister of State (MoS) for Communications Devusinh Chauhan visited the Institute on Monday, October 11.
The MoS began his interactive tour by visiting the Computer and Communication Centre (CCC) at IIT Guwahati. He was accompanied by the Director of IIT Guwahati, Prof TG Sitharam, Deputy Director Prof Sashindra K Kakoty, Interim Registrar Prof A Srinivasan, and Dean Public Relations, Branding and Ranking (PRBR), IIT Guwahati Prof Parameswar K Iyer.
Speaking on his maiden visit to IIT Guwahati, Chauhan expressed his satisfaction with the various advanced research areas being pursued by the Electrical and Electronics Engineering (EEE) Department faculty members of Guwahati and the massive infrastructure that the Institute has developed in frontier areas of communications and other allied areas, that will be a huge boon for pursuing research and development in frontier areas of Communications and Information Technology (IT). He stressed developing technology that will be affordable for the masses and has deep penetration in the rural areas as well.
MoS for Communications was first shown the supercomputer facility Param-Ishan and its capabilities for multiple scientific, technological, weather forecasting, and healthcare applications were demonstrated. The Director of IIT Guwahati also informed him about the upcoming supercomputer facility Param-Kamrupa, which is being installed at the Institute presently.
Prof Ratnajit Bhattacharjee of IIT Guwahati, then made a brief presentation about the communication and network infrastructure, High Performance Computing (HPC) facilities, newly initiated Mehta Family School of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence as well as the activities being carried out in the SAMEER Centre for high power microwave tube and components.
Further, the Minister also had an interactive session with all the regional telecommunication officials at IIT Guwahati and deliberated on the enhancement of connectivity and services to the region.
The MoS interacted with the faculty members, staff, and students of the EEE Department. This discussion was initiated by the Director of IIT Guwahati, Prof T G Sitharam, who spoke about IIT Guwahati and its recent achievements.
Sitharam also highlighted the importance of communication and connectivity in this NE region to the Minister for its overall economic and social development. He stressed that IIT Guwahati being a knowledge hub can provide technology platforms to deliver the best solutions to overcome impending problems of this region and join hands with the Ministry of Communications to provide solutions to enhance the connectivity, improve telecom infrastructure and provide training to human resources for better management and operations of telecommunications facilities.
IIT Guwahati team, led by Prof Roy P Paily, Head, EEE Department, and Prof R Bhattarchjee presented an overview of 5G related research activities, Integrated Circuit (IC) design, fabrication, and characterisation for 5G millimeter-wave, Multi-user Orthogonal Time Frequency Space (OTFS) modulation under heterogeneous user mobilities, Wireless Information and Energy Transfer in a Heterogeneous Network, Device to Device (D2D) based vehicular communication and IoT and Edge computing being pursued at the EEE Department and the contributions IIT Guwahati can make as well as the strong capability to support futuristic communication initiatives from the Ministry.