Tejas Networks and Qualcomm Turn a 5G Base Station Into a Sensor in a 6G ISAC Demo
Tejas Networks and Qualcomm are demonstrating 6G Integrated Sensing and Communications at India Mobile Congress 2026, using a Tejas 5G base station and Qualcomm chipsets to track vehicles and drones from network signals alone.
Can a mobile network double as a radar? Bengaluru-based Tejas Networks and Qualcomm Technologies say it can. At India Mobile Congress (IMC) 2026 in New Delhi, the two companies are jointly demonstrating 6G Integrated Sensing and Communications (ISAC), a technology that lets cellular base stations detect and track objects using the same radio signals that carry calls and data.
The demonstration
The setup pairs Tejas Networks' 5G base station with Qualcomm's Radio Unit (RU) and Distributed Unit (DU) chipsets, along with low-power compute and AI inference. Coverage describes the demo as tracking moving vehicles on city roads, and drones, using communication signals, with no dedicated sensing hardware.
Rajen Vagadia, president of Qualcomm India, said the demonstration shows wide-area sensing running on live 5G infrastructure. Kumar N Sivarajan, chief technology officer of Tejas Networks, described ISAC as a promising direction for 6G. He said it could let operators go beyond providing high-speed connectivity and offer real-time environmental insights.
The companies listed possible applications in transportation, public safety, industrial automation, smart cities and defence, including drone and vehicle tracking, traffic management and monitoring of critical infrastructure.
What ISAC actually is
Radar and mobile communication have developed side by side for decades, using similar physics but separate hardware. A radar sends out a signal and listens for echoes. A base station sends out signals and listens for user devices. ISAC merges the two jobs: the network reads the reflections of its own transmissions to estimate where objects are and how they are moving.
That is why ISAC is one of the defining features of 6G. The International Telecommunication Union's IMT-2030 framework for 6G includes integrated sensing and communication as a new usage scenario. Higher frequencies and wider bandwidths in 6G improve the range and accuracy a network can resolve. Massive antenna arrays let base stations steer beams accurately, which is what sensing needs. AI inference at the network edge, part of this demonstration, turns raw reflections into usable information about what is moving, and where. If it works at scale, the dense grid of towers already built for 5G could become a nationwide sensing layer, without a separate network of radars.
Why it matters for India
The demonstration is significant for three reasons.
It is Indian telecom equipment at the frontier. Tejas Networks, a Tata Group company, supplied radio equipment for BSNL's home-grown 4G network, built with TCS and C-DOT. At IMC, Communications Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said India has built its own 4G stack and deployed it nationwide. Showing early 6G capability on Indian base-station hardware is the next step in that effort.
It fits India's 6G ambitions. The government's Bharat 6G vision aims for India to be a designer and exporter of next-generation telecom technology, with a target of 10 per cent of global 6G patents. Early, credible demonstrations of 6G functions on Indian equipment strengthen that case in standards bodies and export markets.
The applications are local. Low-altitude drone traffic, road congestion and protection of critical infrastructure are pressing problems in Indian cities and along its borders. A sensing capability built into existing towers could address them at a fraction of the cost of separate radar networks.
Caution is warranted
This is a demonstration, not a product launch. A demo does not show commercial deployment or confirmed equipment orders, and the companies have not published independent performance data, such as detection range, accuracy or how well it handles many objects at once. Spectrum allocation, privacy safeguards for a network that can "see", and standards finalisation will all shape whether ISAC becomes a real service.
Even so, the demonstration shows Indian telecom engineering working on problems at the edge of 6G rather than adapting technology designed elsewhere. IMC 2026, organised by the Department of Telecommunications and COAI under the theme "Scale Without Boundaries", runs until 10 October.
Sources
- https://www.prnewswire.com/in/news-releases/tejas-networks-and-qualcomm-jointly-demonstrate-6g-integrated-sensing-and-communications-isac-technology-at-india-mobile-congress-2026-302903418.html
- https://www.aninews.in/news/business/tejas-networks-and-qualcomm-jointly-demonstrate-6g-integrated-sensing-and-communications-isac-technology-at-india-mobile-congress-202620261009154607/
- https://www.freepressjournal.in/business/tejas-networks-qualcomm-to-showcase-6g-isac-tech-at-india-mobile-congress-2026
- https://businessupturn.com/business/tejas-networks-and-qualcomm-demonstrate-6g-sensing-technology-at-india-mobile-congress-2026/
- https://www.kalkine.co.in/article/technology/tejas-networks-nse-tejasnet-advances-6g-research-through-qualcomm-collaboration-and-imc-2026-participation
- https://telecomtalk.info/imc2026-india-built-own-4g-stack-scindia/1012693/
- https://www.business-standard.com/technology/tech-news/india-mobile-congress-2026-begins-oct-7-with-6g-ai-cybersecurity-in-focus-126100600736_1.html