The Finnish tech innovator, Nokia, and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore have entered collaboration to set up a robotics lab in the city. The lab will research socially-relevant use cases that are centred around 5g and other emerging technologies.

The Nokia Centre of Excellence (CoE) for networked robotics aims to explore interdisciplinary projects tgat combine robotics, advanced communication technologies and artificial intelligence (AI) for solutions in relevant areas in areas such as emergency management, agriculture, and industrial automation, a statement said.

The CoE will also play an intermediary role in linking industrial ecosystem, start-ups and academicians for research collaborations and engagement.

Initial research that the CoE aims to explore are drone-based remote management of agricultural land and crop to promote water conservation and prevention of human contact with pesticides. The centre is also exploring 5G-enabled drone-based assistance in disaster management and rescue mission by supporting first responders assess geound situation in disasters. 

"The Nokia CoE, a state-of-the-art network robotics laboratory, will be available to the IISc community and its ecosystem partners for advanced research projects involving designing next-generation networks and applications of Artificial Intelligence for solving pertinent social problems," announced the statement released by Nokia. 

As part of the collaboration, Nokia will share its expertise in network innovations with IISc and leverage its American research arm, Nokia Bell Labs', technical expertise in robot orchestration, robot network controller and human-robot interaction to aid research and development of technology solutions.

In turn, IISc will engage its multi-disciplinary faculties and researchers in support towards researching in algorithms, drones and robotic systems.

Inspite of the COVID-19 pandemic, Nokia has reported better-than-expected returns in the second quarter due to improved margins for telecoms equipment and software. According to the Nokia CEO Rajeev Suri, "Nokia estimated that the COVID-19 crisis hurt its net sales by about €300 million in the second quarter and about €500 million in the first half of the year. We expect that the majority of sales missed in the (second) quarter due to COVID-19 will shift to future periods."

Suri further revealed that Nokia had closed over 80 commercial deals for 5G making it the third main provider for 5G networks behind China's Huawei and Sweden's Ericsson.