The Department of ECE, Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, Delhi (IIIT-Delhi) recently conducted a 2-day skill development and training workshop titled “Bridging Digital Divide: Multiple Access Techniques for Aerospace Integrated Networks.” This workshop was sponsored by the SPARC (Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration) Project, an initiative by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, and technically supported by the IEEE Communication Society, Delhi Chapter. The workshop aimed to share insights on the latest research in wireless communication from various perspectives, such as Terahertz Topological Photonic Integrated Circuits, Dual-Powered Networked Cellular Base Stations, SolarComm, Optical Wireless Systems, Vehicular Communication Technologies (DSRC-V2X, VLC-V2X, RIS-V2X, Solar-V2X), LiFi-enabled High-Speed Data Transmission, and more. Its primary goal was to enhance knowledge of students and academic/industry professionals in wireless communications and allied domains, offering a unique balance between theory and hands-on lab experiments.
The first day began with a warm welcome from the Organizing Committee, led by Prof. Vivek Ashok Bohara, from the Department of ECE at IIIT-Delhi and Chair of the IEEE Communication Society Delhi Chapter. This was followed by a greeting from Dr. Ranjan Bose, Director of IIIT-Delhi, who addressed around 80 participants.
The workshop featured both theoretical presentations and practical demonstrations over two days. The first day included presentations by renowned speakers from academia and industry. It started with a talk on “Next-Gen Wireless Evolution: Heterogeneous LiFi-WiFi Networks for Beyond 6G Connectivity” by Ms. Saswati Paramita from IIIT-Delhi. Dr. Gourab Ghatak from IIT Delhi discussed “Statistics of Successive Successful Transmissions - A New Metric for Reliability in Stochastic Geometry.” Prof. Dusit Niyato from the College of Computing & Data Science (CCDS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He discussed “Toward Scalable Generative AI via Mixture of Experts in Mobile Edge Networks.” Dr. Akshita Gupta from the CONNECT centre of Trinity College Dublin discussed “QoS-Aware Integrated Fiber-Wireless Networks for Next-Generation Communication Systems.” Dr. Cicek Cavdar from KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden, discussed “6G for Connected Sky.” Mr. Rahul from IIIT-Delhi demonstrated “Harvesting Light, Enabling Communication: Hardware Demonstration of Solar Panels as Optical Receivers.”
The second day started with a talk on “Bharat 6G Alliance: Strategizing the Roadmap for India’s 6G Leadership” by Mr. Rajesh Kumar Pathak, Director General, Bharat 6G Alliance & Dr. Astha Sharma. Dr. R. Swaminathan from IIT Indore discussed “Blind Receiver Design in Aerospace Integrated Networks (AINs).” Dr Sujan Rajbhandari from the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, discussed “Terrestrial and non-terrestrial optical wireless communications: Advancement towards 6G.” Prof. Zilong Liu from the University of Essex discussed “OTFS-SCMA – A Promising Waveform for Highly Dynamic IoT Networks.” Dr Maria Papaioannou from the Technical University of Denmark, Denmark, highlighted “Building Trust in 6G: Advanced Mobile Security and User Authentication Techniques.” Dr. Rahul Gupta from IIIT-Delhi demonstrated OTA Measurement for wireless devices and antennas using an Anechoic Chamber. Mr. Khagendra Joshi from IIIT-Delhi demonstrated a state-of-the-art 5G testbed and its various use cases to the participants.
This workshop was unique due to its mix of theoretical talks and practical hands-on sessions, which provided participants with first-hand experience of current research in 6G and beyond cellular systems. The sessions were open to all workshop attendees and students. Participant feedback was very positive, appreciating the initiative by the SPARC Project, IEEE ComSoc Delhi Chapter, and the ECE Department of IIIT-Delhi.