This news agreement adds to the collaboration recently announced between InterDigital and the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IIT-K) to develop 6G enabling technologies that impact future wireless standards

U.S. company InterDigital has signed an agreement the University Carlos III of Madrid (UC3M), in Spain to expand their bilateral partnership in research to enable future 5G-Advanced (5G-A) and 6G technologies.

Specifically, InterDigital will sponsor experimental research and innovation at UC3M that explores and advances integrated sensing and communications (ISAC) in next-generation cellular systems, 5G-Advanced and 6G. The U.S. company noted that this research will help unlock “multi-dimensional sensing information” about connected devices and unconnected objects, as well as their movements and surroundings, to support new use cases and services.

The InterDigital and UC3M partnership also reflects an important research collaboration at a time when 6G research and standardization has emerged as a priority across the European Union, United States and other regions worldwide.

“We are excited to kick off our formal research partnership with UC3M to diveintegrated sensing and communication capabilities and deepen our understanding of the critical technologies that will shape the path to 6G,” said Rajesh Pankaj, EVP and CTO at InterDigital.

Arturo Azcorra, professor at UC3M, said: “This new agreement further strengthens our partnership that will result in spearhead discoveries in the area of integrated communications and sensing and 6G”.

Last month, InterDigital signed an agreement with the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IIT-K) with the aim of developing 6G enabling technologies that impact future wireless standards.

As part of the partnership, InterDigital will sponsor research and innovation at IIT-K in advancing Extreme MIMO (Multiple-Input, Multiple-Output) systems to achieve higher spectrum efficiency and larger network coverage required for future 6G network deployments. The partners noted that these advancements are critical for enabling 6G networks to scale and meet increased bandwidth and coverage demands of advanced applications such as metaverse, holographic communications and digital twins.

The partners also noted that this partnership is aligned with the growing collaboration between India and the United States around 6G research and standardization and follows a joint statement between the two countries at the recently-concluded G20 summit.

Subramaniam Ganesh, director of the IIT Kanpur said that the partnership with InterDigital comes at an opportune moment when India has released the Bharat 6G Vision Document and has laid the foundation to becoming a world leader in 6G technology and has launched the 6G R&D testbed. “The academia has a major role to play both in terms of advanced research leading to 6G standardization as well as developing technology components of the 6G,” he said.