5G Becomes A Catalyst for Manufacturing Transformation While Solving the Bottleneck of Smart Factory Development

With the advent of the 5G era, due to its characteristics of high speed, low latency and high frequency bandwidth, killer application products have appeared, and the manufacturing industry with many machine equipment and automation systems plays an indispensable role.

​5G technology is undoubtedly one of the most popular scientific and technological issues in recent years. The international research organization Gartner report shows that the global 5G wireless network infrastructure revenue in 2020 will reach 4.2 billion US dollars, an increase of 89% from 2019 2.2 billion US dollars. The development is endless, attracting vigorous investment from all walks of life and government agencies, and becoming a catalyst for the transformation of traditional industries and manufacturing industries.

According to ZDNet reports, the market is currently in the transitional period of 5G development, and network vendors are actively developing LTE Advanced and LTE Advanced Pro (4.5G) technologies to increase bandwidth and device speed by combining multiple carriers before 5G is popularized.

To seize business opportunities in the 5G market, technology giants Qualcomm, Samsung, Ericsson and Huawei have developed 5G-related audio and video solutions, and conducted tests in cooperation with telecommunications companies.

It is understood that at this stage, 5G has already started in the United States, the United Kingdom, South Korea and other countries. Singapore, which is striving to create a "smart country", will also launch 5G commercial services in 2020, with a target of more than 50% coverage by 2022.

With the advent of the 5G era, due to its high-speed, low-latency and high-bandwidth characteristics, killer-level applications have emerged, among which consumers are most concerned about the next-generation mobile network is expected to strengthen streaming audio and video services, when users use YouTube, Netflix and Spotify Platform, 5G technology will greatly enhance the streaming experience.

Besides, the 5G standard transmission speed is up to 20 Gbit / s, and the network speed is 100 times faster than 4G. It plays an indispensable and important role in the manufacturing industry with many machine equipment and sensors.

In recent years, the manufacturing industry has collected production information through the Internet of Things (IoT) and sensors, while also generating massive amounts of data. Without stable and good connectivity (Connectivity), the factory cannot immediately monitor or maintain equipment, and the automation-based machine system may not function properly.

Jonathan Wilkins, head of EU automation, said that 5G infrastructure and optical fiber technology complement each other. 5G should not be regarded as a substitute for optical fiber connection. Especially when operators deploy small cells and 5G radio, 5G base stations also have to The high-speed network can be realized only through the optical fiber backbone.

Wilkins further explained that in the field of industrial automation, 5G is expected to eventually replace wired networks, and even in sophisticated technologies such as motion control and vision systems, 5G will not fail.

Entering Industry 4.0, because of the inability of Ethernet to achieve information security, the emergence of time-sensitive network (TSN) standards can enable traditional Ethernet to realize the interactive capabilities and real-time requirements of manufacturing equipment 3GPP and IEEE are still working on standardizing the Ethernet protocol, which will help overcome the bottleneck faced by smart manufacturing.
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Reference:  digitimes