Vi trials 5G apps with air traffic management, motion capture in India

Vodafone Idea (Vi) has partnered with Indian startups Vizzbee Robotic Solutions and Tweek Labs, which will use the telecom operator’s 5G services for specific applications that it offers to the market.

As part of the trial sessions, Vi will use its 5G solutions alongside the two startups to test specific services in the fields of aerial traffic management, aerobridge management servers and motion capture technologies.

The trial programme employs startups that had previously been adjudged winners of an IMC 2020 5G hackathon that was organised by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) as a way to identify services that would be the best candidates for operating on 5G networks.

“We are conducting 5G trials to identify a range of India specific use cases that can accelerate the achievement of Smart Cities, Smart Enterprises and Smart Citizens.

Vi will extend support and mentorship to Vizzbee Robotics Solution and Tweek Labs in testing their solutions on our 5G network,” said Abhijit Kishore, COO of Vi.

With Vizzbee Robotics, Vi will be testing aerial traffic management and management servers for aerobridge operations based on the 5G network.

According to Vi, the 5G trial will include test applications such as testing live video frames, offer real time airport analytics, and use live streams to enable public safety and law enforcement operations for on-ground personnel.

The real time analytics will involve processing of live data feed from sources such as drones that are active in the airport area.

With Tweak Labs, Vi’s 5G trials will include a full body of motion capture services, which will be used for training and monitoring of professional athletes.

Vi India has partnered with Ericsson to deploy its 5G trial services in Pune. The operator claims peak internet bandwidth of 3.7Gbps on the millimetre wave 5G network, with “very low latency”. 

The bandwidth was achieved on Non-Standalone (NSA) 5G network. It has also claimed peak download speeds of 1.5Gbps on the 3.5GHz 5G spectrum band, in partnership with manufacturers.