The testbed will be located on Texas A&M University System’s RELLIS Campus in Bryan, Texas, which was founded in 2016 for research and technology development purposes. Both public and private sector organizations will use AT&T’s 5G network for a variety of projects related to AR and VR initiatives, autonomous and connected vehicles, robotics, roadside safety and physical security, large-scale infrastructure, autonomous agriculture, Internet of Things, smart cities and more. Brad Hoover, chief information officer for The RELLIS Campus, said it will be one of the most advanced university-based 5G testbeds in the country and will allow enterprises to test out tools using 5G mmWave and Sub-6 frequencies. The first organizations to use the 5G testbed will all be part of the Texas A&M University ecosystem, including the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station, Texas A&M Transportation Institute, Texas Division of Emergency Management, and Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service. Sensor-laden smart intersection grids, precision navigation for vehicles and agriculture tools for farmers, are some of the projects that will be worked on at the testbed. There is also a plan to test out a variety of robotics applications, and both AT&T, as well as Texas A&M, said some projects would have a military focus. A testing site for the George H. W. Bush Combat Development Complex is located on the RELLIS Campus. “We expect AT&T 5G – one of the outcomes of our investment of more than $110 billion in our wireless and wireline networks from 2016 to 2020 – will help power the future of defense, government, commercial industry and society,” said Jason Porter, president of AT&T Public Sector and FirstNet.
