The Department of ECE, Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, Delhi (IIIT-Delhi) conducted a 2-week skill development and training workshop on the Design and Fundamentals of 5G and Beyond 5G cellular systems. The workshop was technically sponsored by IEEE Communication Society, Delhi Chapter, Keysight Technologies, Anritsu, and Entuple Technologies. This workshop shared insights on the indigenous design and development of 5G equipment in India as well as standardization efforts taken by Indian academic institutions and companies in this direction. This workshop aim was to enhance employability of the faculty, students and industry professionals in the telecommunication and allied domains with specific focus on 5G system design, fundamentals, and performance analysis. All workshops were designed to meet National Skill Qualification Framework (NKQF) level 5 and above. The workshop offered unique balance between the theory and hands-on lab experiments with 50 fast- paced contact hours.
The first week was started with a warm welcome from the Organizing Committee, including Prof. Vivek Ashok Bohara, Head, the Department of ECE at IIIT-Delhi as well as Chair, IEEE Communication Society Delhi Chapter. This was followed by an introduction and overview by Dr. Sumit J. Darak, Associate Professor, IIIT-Delhi. The workshop was attended by around 80 participants.
The workshop covered both theoretical presentations and practical demonstrations each day for two weeks. The theoretical presentations were offered by the well-known speakers from academia as well as industry and the practical demonstrations were conducted by research engineers and Ph.D. scholars. The speakers from academics were Dr. Gourab Ghatak, Assistant Professor at IIT Delhi who gave a presentation on Initial-Access Design and Beam-Acquisition in 5G, Dr. Abhijit Mitra, Assistant Professor at IIIT-Delhi who introduced 5G Transport Network Infrastructure, Prof. Vivek Ashok Bohara, Professor at IIIT-Delhi presented and discussed Vehicular-visible light communication for 5G and beyond 5G V2X Communication, Dr. Arani Bhattacharya, Assistant Professor at IIIT-Delhi gave a talk on Utilization of MIMO in Modern Wi-Fi Systems, Dr. Sumit Darak, Associate Professor at IIIT-Delhi discussed on Multi-armed Bandit- based Online Learning for 6G: From Algorithms to Architecture.
The list of industrial speakers include Mr. Sudipta Bhaumik, from Sterlite Technologies presented on Advancement in fiber optics technologies for 5G and beyond, Dr. Parag Aggarwal, 5G System Architect at HFCL Ltd. discussed RU Design Fundamental for 5G systems and 5 G Standards (3GPP & ORAN), Mr. Madhukar Tripathi, Associate Director- Business Development & Marketing at Anritsu India Pvt. Ltd. Presented on 5G optical measurements, Dr. Mansi Peer, Staff Software Engineer at National Instruments, talked on 5G Test and Measurement, Mr. Asheesh Sharma, Engineer-Technical Support at Anritsu India Pvt. Ltd. presented on 5G base station measurements, Mr. Rupam Anand, Expert R&D at Keysight Technologies presented on 5G beamforming.
This workshop was unique in the sense that each talk was followed by practical lab sessions which gave the participants hands on experience on some of the current 5G technologies and systems as well as test and measurement required in the domain of 5G cellular systems. The first lab session was addressed by Dr. Rahul Gupta, Manager of Research Labs at IIIT-Delhi on 5G measurements using spectrum analyser. Subsequently, other sessions were presented by Ph.D. students from Wirocomm and CoE-LiFi Labs at IIIT- Delhi. The sessions were open to all workshop attendees and students. The participants’ feedback was very positive and they appreciated the initiative taken by the IEEE ComSoc Delhi Chapter and ECE department of IIIT-Delhi.