Industrial automation is waiting for 5G
Author : Mark Patrick, Mouser Electronics
02 April 2019
Having been the hot topic in telecommunications for many years, 5G is almost here, with US operators Verizon and AT&T commercial deployments in 2018, South Korea targeting launch of services in 2019 and most European operators working to deliver limited offerings from 2020 onwards.
With some commentators going so far as to predict that it could be one of the most important developments in human history, 5G promises to transform many areas of our lives by enabling the emergence of a wide range of innovative applications across multiple vertical segments, including healthcare, automotive, smart cities and industrial automation.
In this article, we take a closer look at 5G in the context of industrial automation, (IA), examining what lies behind the “hype”, what makes it so different from 4G and how it will actually deliver the promise. We also consider the challenges that this disruptive technology will present to manufacturers of network infrastructure equipment and explore what’s driving the urgency among IA equipment suppliers and their customers to have it deployed.
What is 5G?
The world’s hunger for mobile bandwidth is insatiable, driven by recent developments such as Augmented reality, (AR), Autonomous Vehicles and, significantly, the exponential growth of the Internet of Things, (IoT). Analysts’ predictions on numbers of connected devices vary but all agree that the growth will be huge, with a recent report by Ericsson forecasting that total global mobile data traffic is set to rise at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 39 percent, reaching close to 107 exabytes (EB) per month by the end of 2023.
Current 4G/LTE networks are fast reaching capacity and will be unable to support this level of demand and so, in 2015, recognising that a revolution in mobile communications systems was required, the International Telecommunications Union, (ITU), defined the requirements specification for 5G in the document ITU-R IMT-2020 (5G). The ITU is now working with various bodies, including 3GPP, to finalise standards for the technology by 2020.
Enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) provides extremely high data rates (of up to 20Gb/s) and offers enhanced coverage, well beyond that of 4G.
Figure 1: Selected Key Performance Indicators of 5G according to ITU-R. (Source: “5G for Connected Industries and Automation”, 2nd edition, White Paper, 5GACIA, November 2018)
Massive Machine Type Communications (mMTC) is designed to provide wide-area coverage and deep indoor penetration for hundreds of thousands of IoT devices per square kilometre. mMTC is also designed to provide ubiquitous connectivity with low software and hardware requirements from the devices, and will support battery-saving low-energy operation.
Ultra-Reliable and Low Latency Communications (URLLC) can facilitate highly critical applications with very demanding requirements in terms of end-to-end (E2E) latency (one millisecond or lower), reliability and availability.
To deliver this level of performance, designers of 5G networks and systems have had to take a revolutionary approach, utilising a number of technologies, including:
New spectrum options utilise bandwidth at much higher frequencies than 4G, including the mm-Wave frequencies above 30GHz, where the spectrum is less crowded. These higher frequencies enable a step-change increase in the amount of data transmitted over 5G systems.
Massive MIMO (multiple-input, multiple-output) and Beamforming techniques together enable 5G to support over 1,000 more devices per meter than 4G, beaming ultra-fast data to a lot more users, with high precision and little latency.
Network Slicing is one of a number of enhanced network management features of 5G, and will enable operators to offer services tailored to the application. Self-driving cars, for example, require extremely fast, low latency connections to support real-time navigation, but many IoT sensors transmit data in periodic bursts, requiring high speeds and a lower class of service.
Figure 2: The Industry 4.0 Smart Factory. (Source: “The Smart Factory, Responsive, Adaptive, Connected Manufacturing”, Deloitte University Press)
Cloud Implementation and Edge Computing brings the benefits of the cloud to radio networks, satisfying low latency requirements by bringing the content closer to the radio, providing local break out and Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC).
5G and IA
A fundamental change, often referred to as Industry 4.0, is sweeping through manufacturing, driven by the needs of volatile global markets. To survive in this increasingly competitive market, manufacturers are striving to improve efficiency of their operations whilst maintaining quality of production. To do this they are moving towards the Industry 4.0 smart factory model, Figure 2, where flexible, modular and versatile production techniques, combining human expertise with automation, including cyber-systems replace static, sequential production systems.
Whereas most factories today use wired communication protocols such as Industrial Ethernet, Profinet and CANbus to interconnect sensors, actuators and controllers in automated systems, hard-wired networks will not support the requirements of the smart factory, which require powerful and efficient wireless communication services, where latency, availability, jitter, and determinism are key.
Figure 3 illustrates how the top use cases for the factory of the future, as identified in a 3GPP technical report map to the 5G service requirements defined in the ITU specification.
5G’s mMTC capability, for example, is ideally suited to the requirements of wireless sensor networks (WSN), which will be increasingly used in the Factory of the Future for monitoring specific environments, such as production processes and their corresponding parameters. mMTC is ideal where high numbers of devices require connectivity and where long battery life, (and hence low power communications), is a priority, whilst transmitted data volumes may be low.
Figure 3: Overview of Selected Industrial Use Cases According to Their Basic Service Requirements. (Source: “5G for Connected Industries and Automation”, 5GACIA, November 2018)
Additionally, monitoring of sensors is a dynamic function; simple devices must be monitored by a centralised capability, whilst more sophisticated sensors may include computational capabilities, enabling monitoring capability to be kept inside the sensor network, either for security purposes or to reduce the dependence of an automated process on the internet. The permutation of monitoring options is known as fog computing, multi-access edge computing (MEC), and cloud computing, Figure 4, and, again support for this is one of the core building blocks of 5G technology.
Motion control and industrial robotics, on the other hand, have a completely different set of communication requirements where precision and real-time responsiveness require the characteristics provided by URLCC. The Cloud Implementation and Edge Computing capabilities of 5G are also enabling the emergence of Cloud Robotics, set to be one of the early beneficiaries of the new communications technology.
5G challenges
Although 5G is close to becoming reality, many challenges remain to be resolved across the value chain, before the promise can be delivered.
Network operators face serious investments as migrating from 4G/LTE to 5G isn’t an incremental step as for previous generations. Changes will need to be made at every base station and the numbers of masts will have to be significantly increased to accommodate the smaller 5G cell-size. Since the above costs may potentially be incurred before real 5G revenues start to flow, many operators may adopt a phased approach to 5G network deployment, leveraging existing 4G/LTE networks as much and for as long as possible.
Device manufacturers must grapple with the challenges of designing devices for use at mmWave frequencies, where low-power consumption, small form factor and low cost are critical requirements.
Figure 4: High level component view of a scalable massive sensor network. (Source: 3GPP TR 22.804 V16.1.0 (2018-09))
Finally, factory owners and system integrators must find ways of seamlessly integrating 5G technology into existing communications infrastructure and implementing systems in factories where the radio propagation environment can be hostile.
To add to this, all of the above groups must cope with the fact that defined standards and radio spectrum allocation for 5G are still some way off, introducing an element of risk to any design and, potentially, slowing the pace of implementation.
Conclusion
Despite the above, and many more challenges, the prize for the industry is significant. According to the GSMA, an organisation representing the interests of mobile operators worldwide, 5G connections will reach 1.1 billion by 2025, causing operator revenues to grow at a CAGR of 2.5% to reach $1.3 trillion in 2025. At the same time, a recent study from Ericsson predicts that ICT players will generate 234 billion USD of 5G revenues from the manufacturing vertical. As for the manufacturing companies themselves, PWC report that by 2020, European companies will be investing €140 annually in industrial Internet applications and expect to achieve on average 18% efficiency improvements over the next 5 years.
Whatever your position in the value chain, 5G is an incredibly large and fast-growing market which will significantly revolutionise the production, shipment, and servicing of goods and products throughout their whole lifecycle, delivering efficiency gains to manufactures and supporting improved levels of quality and consumer choice.
It’s no surprise that IA equipment suppliers and their customers can't wait to get it deployed.
Contact Details and Archive...