The Technische Universität Ilmenau is building a wireless network on its campus based on the latest, high-performance 5G mobile communications standard. The large-scale research project, which will start on January 1, 2024, will enable the university to conduct research and teaching at the highest international level - for example in the fields of autonomous driving, medical technology and automated production. The project has a total volume of 860,000 euros and is set to run for three years. It is 90% financed by the Thuringian Ministry of Economic Affairs, Science and Digital Society with funds from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).
The flexible 5G mobile network, which will enable nationwide mobile signal transmission on the TU Ilmenau campus, will be available to all scientists at the university for research and experimental purposes in the future. Over the next three years, a high-performance outdoor and indoor network will be set up for this purpose - in the outdoor area via nine radio cells covering large parts of the university campus.
Project manager Prof. Andreas Mitschele-Thiel, Head of the Group for Integrated Communication Systems, is confident that the new technical infrastructure will open up completely new possibilities for research at TU Ilmenau: "The technology that we are building on our university campus makes radio transmissions with super-fast data rates of several gigabits per second and extremely low latency possible, i.e. delay times of just one to five milliseconds. In contrast to the predecessor standard 4G, this enables reliable data transmission even in real time and therefore highly ambitious research projects in a wide range of areas." In autonomous driving, for example, research projects on road safety have completely new possibilities: Collisions between vehicles could be avoided with maximum reliability, as could accidents involving cyclists or pedestrians.
