Connectivity Technology Blog

One of the main requirements for 5G to be usable in Industry 4.0 scenarios is that it must be able to replicate the deterministic and low-latency nature of communication that would be expected as in case of wired networking. Last year, Devaki Chandramouli, Work Item Rapporteur at 3GPP, wrote an article titled, '5G for Industry 4.0'. Quoting from the article: In order to be able to deploy 5G for new and diverse use cases, including industry 4.0 and factory automation, the 5G system must work in harmony with the communications technologies used in such industries. For this purpose, 3GPP has now made significant progress towards the integration of the 5G system with IEEE 802.1 working group specifications covering Time Sensitive Networking (TSN). The ‘Vertical_LAN’ work item, in 3GPP Release-16, introduces the following three new and distinct 5G enablers for Industry 4.0; Support for Time Sensitive Communications by seamlessly integrating the 5G system as a bridge to IEEE TSN. Sup...

According to Siemens , Industrie 4.0, the smart factory, the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) – these are the future of industrial manufacturing. Designing production plants and intralogistics to be more flexible, autonomous, and efficient requires the right communication framework and comprehensive connectivity. The new 5G communication standard opens up important new prospects. We have covered quite a few tutorials on Industrial IoT, Industry 4.0 and Private Networks. If you do not have a background on these topics, please see the related posts at the end of this post before proceeding further. At the 5G-Industry Summit back in September, Sander Rotmensen, Director Industrial Wireless Communication, Siemens AG spoke about how Industrial 5G will enable the industry of tomorrow. The abstract states: Industrial 5G opens the door to comprehensive wireless networking of production, maintenance and logistics. High data rates, reliable high-performance broadband transmission and ultra-s...

We have covered tutorials on IoT, IIoT and even Industry 4.0 as part of 3G4G. Recently, Cambridge Wireless (CW), the well known international community for companies involved in the research, development and application of wireless and mobile, internet, semiconductor and software technologies relaunched their Industrial IoT SIG. As part of the relaunch, a refresher webinar was held to explain the concept of Industrial IoT. All the sessions as well as the Q&A session were fantastic. You can view the resources here once shared. For this blog post, we are looking at the final talk by Sylvia Lu, FRSA, Head of Technology Strategy, u-blox UK, Member of Advisory Board, UK5G. Let's start with some example use cases on the factory floor that you can see shown in the picture above. Some of the topics that are shown in the picture has been covered as part of other blog posts and are listed at the bottom of this post. This slide nicely summarizes not only the cellular and 5G standard...

Manufacturing is undergoing a major generational shift. Industry 4.0, the digitisation and advancement of the manufacturing processes and ecosystem, is set to create far more flexible, efficient and sustainable production lines. 5G for IoT underpins this transformation by enabling manufacturing companies and their supply chain partners the opportunity to utilise emerging technologies such as AI and machine vision to give vastly improved visibility over all aspects of their business. At MWC 2021, GSMA hosted 5G IoT for Industry 4.0 Session that focused on how modern 5G networks are able to provide a tailored, capable and intelligent solutions to enhance the end to end manufacturing process. The video from that sesession is embedded below. You can jump to specific timestamp to watch the relevant part: 00:00 Opening Keynote: 5G IoT for Manufacturing - Aruna Srinivasan, Executive Director, IoT, GSMA ( slides ) 06:41 Panel 1: 5G Networks for Industry 4.0 27:14 Keynote: 5G IoT and Industry 4...

Vodafone’s 5G is completely transforming production at Ford’s E:PrimE (Electrified Powertrain in Manufacturing Engineering) facility in Dunton, Essex, UK. GSMA produced a case study to explain the details. The following is from GSMA's case study The Ford Motor Company is using a mobile private network to enable an electric vehicle plant in the UK to enhance production quality in real-time. A combination of 4G and 5G connectivity provided by Vodafone UK enables Ford to analyse and control the new laser welding machines used to manufacture batteries and electric motors for vehicles. Although automotive plants are highly standardised with repetitive processes for assembling parts to tight tolerances, Ford still sees variations that can impact the efficiency of the plant and the quality of finished products. These can be as subtle as changes in temperature, or even sunlight affecting the cameras used to detect issues on the production line. Low latency connectivity is required to enab...

IBM, the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), M1 Limited (M1) and Samsung recently announced Singapore’s first 5G Industry 4.0 trial, to demonstrate the transformative impact of 5G for enterprises and drive the next bound of Singapore’s digital economy. This announcement was part of IBM’s edge computing solutions for the 5G era announced at IBM Think 2020. A press release on the Singapore regulator IMDA's website said : The trial aims to develop insights and showcase benefits of 5G in Industry 4.01. It will be an innovation model that allows for development, testing and benchmarking of 5G-enabled solutions that can be applied across various industries. This partnership consists of the following three main areas: 5G Innovation : The trial aims to design, develop, test and benchmark 5G-enabled industry 4.0 solutions that can be applied across various industries. 5G Solution Showcase : Solutions developed will be featured at IBM’s Industry 4.0 Studio2 5G Solutions Show...