1. 5G tractors
In 2019, Purdue University researchers worked with their contemporaries at North Carolina State University to build a National Science Foundation-funded specialized wireless network to turn farm machinery, like tractors, into internet of things tools. For example, installing specialized network equipment to a tractor can transmit the location, fuel consumption, temperature, pressure, hitch position, amount of slip and more to a farmer’s cell phone.
Purdue University and AT&T last December also opened a 5G research and development test bed in Indianapolis focused on infrastructural applications. Students and faculty will use AT&T’s “multi-access edge computing” technology to process more data at lower latency.
More recently, the university announced it’s opening a 5G lab in June in its mixed-use research and development park that will focus on advanced manufacturing, hypersonics and microelectronics. Engineer professor David Love said the program will allow his team to test mobile technologies in rural settings “in ways that aren’t possible right now.”
AT&T is also sponsoring labs at the University of Connecticut and University of Missouri, both of which are scheduled to open later this year.
