Migrating manufacturing to Industry 5.0 with 5G

Chicago’s Digital Manufacturing Institute and the National Center for Manufacturing Cybersecurity (MxD) have now installed a private 5G network connected to sensors to enable automation, monitoring and predictive maintenance of factory equipment and will serve as a real-world model for companies investigating the potential benefits of Industry 4.0 technologies and applications.

According to Betacom, a provider of private 5G wireless networks and managed services, the network, which covers MxD's factory-floor lab, is one of the first indoor private 5G deployments in the U.S. Betacom worked with 5G radio access network vendor Airspan networks and 5G core software provider Druid Software to install the 5G network. Betacom is managing MxD's network through its cloud-based security and service operations center (SSOC), which is based on zero-trust security design principles.

“This is really a great place for innovation, in a non-production environment, where teams can come together to innovate and really further develop this application and the whole ecosystem around this,” Betacom CEO Johan Bjorklund said during a panel session and tour of the facility at MxD last week.

The 3.5 GHz 5G network that went live last week follows a 4G network deployed at the site three months ago, which began the migration from wired connections and Wi-Fi at the MxD site to a private wireless network, although all of these technologies will continue to be used at MxD in some capacity. The transition to 5G comes as 5G has become common in public networks but has lagged behind in private network deployments in general. While 5G can provide the low latency needed for connected manufacturing equipment to operate, companies in the industry may still need some time to evaluate its use cases and develop applications.

All parties involved in the deployment are looking for help, discussing network capabilities, manufacturing use cases for dedicated 5G and related topics during a panel session. The panel was moderated by Joe Madden, founder and president of Mobile Experts, and included representatives from Betacom, MxD, Airspan and Intel, who provided use case and application expertise for the deployment.

“If you look at it from a business perspective, there are a lot of use cases we could talk about, but I guess there are three things that I’m really excited about this network,” said Tony Del Sesto, digital manufacturing technician at MxD. “One is the flexibility. If you think about a private system, the factory is dynamic. If I’ve got a large machine connected and I’m losing signal strength, I can just move an antenna and put another radio unit in. It’s a private system, so you have the flexibility to configure the hardware and the software. The other thing…mission-critical control is very attractive because as a manufacturer you have control over what traffic is, and you can configure virtual networks within the factory for different types of traffic. I might have a network that needs high bandwidth, a network that needs low latency, or a network that needs very sensitive control equipment. And finally, something that I think is very attractive to manufacturers is that when you look at coverage per dollar, I find that mid-band coverage gives you the most bang for the buck.”

“For use cases, automation [automated control of equipment] is part of it, but I think you’re talking about just enabling a mobile workforce in a variety of ways,” said Bob Pike, general manager of Intel Intelligent Edge, who specializes in industrial software and systems engineering. “For specific use cases, think about computer vision-based equipment inspection or tracking inventory that’s moving around in a large factory.”

Glenn Laxdal, president and COO of Airspan, chimed in, “Whether you’re talking about smart warehousing, smart manufacturing, oil and gas extraction, transportation, there are countless use cases for automation. What’s going to happen is that the devices, whatever device you want to control, 4G and 5G-enabled sensors are going to go into those devices, and those devices are going to be controlled by the network that we’re creating.”

Laxdal added, “You’re going to see factories become like data centers, with all these sensors everywhere collecting data that needs to be analyzed…You need a new model of network computing, like edge computing, to be able to take advantage of this. A dedicated network like this can be the cusp of a new way of computing.”

While Industry 4.0 may have made automation the first thing to look at, as Pike suggests, the next generation of digital manufacturing — Industry 5.0 — will be all about using technology to support human workers. For example, during a tour of the factory floor lab, Del Sesto demonstrated how “portable work instructions” for assembling parts can be displayed as light projections on the work surface to help train employees or factory assistants who roam between stations. Employees can also be warned through sensor-based alarms if they don’t pull components from different bins and cabinets in the correct order for assembly.

Such applications can also help employees understand the ever-changing nature of manufacturing facilities and the vast amounts of data collected around them that feeds back into operations in the form of insights. Pike described the “convergence of OT and IT” — operational technology and information technology — as a challenging time for those who manage and work in factories.

Del Sesto agrees, saying, “Industry 4.0 kind of forgot about people. Industry 5.0 can bring people back into the equation.”

He added, “One of the big benefits of 5G is mobility. How does one stay up to date on all of this data, all of these data sources that are happening in your factory? How does one ingest it while on the go? For example, there’s a lot of discussion in the industry about digital twins. Well, if you have a mobile workforce moving around, how can they monitor the digital twin in real time? Computer vision inspection helps a lot. With mobility comes a lot of bandwidth, latency, and flexibility, and how to integrate with people in the factory, which is where the big opportunity lies in the future.”