The future of manufacturing lies in Industrial 5G, but to use it to its full potential, organizations need to know where to start and what solutions to invest in.
Mohannad Shaban, Product Portfolio Manager, RS
It’s rare for a technological development to enter into the public lexicon. But when it does — as it has with 5G — it’s typically game-changing. In fact, the term 5G is used so nonchalantly in smartphone commercials and laptop ads that it can be easy to take it for granted, largely because its full implications aren’t publicly elaborated upon. Sure, 5G is a network that will be faster and more reliable than ever before, just as 4G was an upgrade over 3G and so forth. So, what’s the big deal? Technologies are upgraded and improved on an annual basis, right?
While that’s true for many technologies, 5G is different and it deserves to be treated as such by every industry in the global business landscape.
We live in what many call the fourth industrial revolution, which will radically change not just how businesses operate, but how societies live, work and fundamentally communicate. In this edition of the RS Expert Advice series, we’re going to address how 5G will impact the fourth industrial revolution and what industrial manufacturers can do to unlock the possibilities this future may hold.
The Impact of Industrial 5G
In the simplest terms, 5G represents the next technological leap in wireless connectivity, which is essential for machines to interact with one another. In this way, it’s similar to 4G, the previous iteration, which still operates on a high level in industries across the world. What’s significant about 5G isn’t how it differs from 4G, but rather just how substantial of an upgrade 5G really is.
Take, for example, the ability to wirelessly transfer data. In 2018, the year before 5G networks were officially launched, it was estimated there were 33 zettabytes of data being transferred across the world, including digital imaging, entertainment, productivity and voice usage. (A zettabyte is a measure of storage capacity equivalent to two to the 70th power [270] bytes, which can also be expressed as 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes or one sextillion bytes.) 5G utilizes a higher frequency band of the wireless spectrum to enable the transfer of far higher quantities of data faster than could previously be imagined — 10 to 20 times faster than 4G, in fact. And although we are still far from considering 5G to be fully implemented, it is estimated the amount of data in the global datasphere by 2025 will increase to approximately 176 zettabytes, so the rollout is certainly well timed.
The possibilities that 5G bandwidth presents are virtually limitless, especially in the industrial sector where it even has a separate, more specialized moniker: Industrial 5G. While 5G is broadly set to be utilized by the public, Industrial 5G specifically refers to private 5G communication that meets the more rigorous demands of industrial applications, is based on at least Release 16 of the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) wireless standard and runs on hardware tailored for industrial environments.
“5G is really going to be a game-changer,” said Eckard Eberle, CEO of Digital Process Automation at Siemens AG, in Siemen’s “Industrial 5G — Making the Factory of Tomorrow a Reality” webinar. “When you look, every ten years we somehow always see a new standard coming up…but what we see with 5G is the first chance we have to incorporate these advancements into the industrial applications we see in plants and shop floors.”
These applications include automation systems, robotics, augmented reality technologies, artificial intelligence, assisted work, mobile equipment, edge computing and the Internet of Things (IoT). Although all these developments predate 5G technology, the networks that have supported them to this point were not capable of supporting them on a scale necessary for mass industrial implementation. But as 5G networks gradually supersede 4G networks across the globe, that will change. Thanks to massive machine-type communication (MTC), 5G networks will be able to connect an astounding one million devices per square kilometer.
While imagining the short-term possibilities Industrial 5G elicits are impressive, the long-term possibilities, as coverage expands and equipment infrastructures become sophisticated enough to leverage its full potential, will be especially game-changing. Over time, organizations in the industrial sector with the necessary funds will be able to construct new, smart, fully autonomous factories. In the healthcare sector, organizations will be able to explore new frontiers of mobile health, personalized medicine and even social media healthcare applications. In the energy sector, automation could be implemented to instantaneously respond to outages and spikes in demand without the need to put human personnel at risk. And that’s only use cases from just three industries.
Improved Customization and Security
In addition to enhanced performance potential, the other significant benefit to Industrial 5G is how specialized networks can become. Through a technique called network slicing, which will fundamentally redefine the concept of network infrastructure, networks will have the ability to be customized for specific uses and provide far expanded insight into network resource utilization. For example, applications like cloud-controlled machinery and smart metering both require network connectivity but with vastly different characteristics. New wireless technologies, such as network slicing, provide the basis for logical networks that better meet the needs of each networked application and will allow new products and services to be brought to market rapidly and in a way that can easily evolve to meet fast-changing demands.
This segmented networking system has other beneficial characteristics as well. For example, the private nature of Industrial 5G networks, which means that they don’t share radio frequencies with other networks, will make ultra-reliable and low-latency communication — which represents the highest achievable level of network reliability with near-zero response time — readily achievable.
Additionally, the isolation of these private networks provides vastly improved security over previous network generations.
“Users [in a public network] need to be aware that the data from the shop floor would leave the factory,” said Antonio Grasso, Founder and CEO of Italian startup Digital Business Innovation Srl, and Sander Rotmensen, Director of Industrial Wireless Communication at Siemens Digital Industries Software, in a joint blog post for Ingenuity. “This makes the factory vulnerable to cyberattacks, data breaches and risks compromising intellectual properties… The private connection [of an Industrial 5G network] allows users to leverage the power and reliability of 5G without having to take any of the risks.”
Preparing for Industrial 5G Implementation
Although the potential of Industrial 5G seems obvious, the changes that industrial organizations will have to make to their network infrastructures in order to support it are less so.
The first element of that process, which is out of individual organizations’ control, requires the availability of the 5G spectrum dedicated for use in private networks. The spectrum refers to the range of frequencies through which data can be transferred, and this range can be thought of in three different buckets: low-band, which has the broadest coverage but the lowest speed, mid-band, which is a balance of speed and coverage, and high-band, which offers the best speed but most limited coverage. Which buckets industrial networks have access to will depend on how the government of each geographic location approaches the issue.
In the United States, for example, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) allows companies to bid on the use of portions of each spectrum band. Germany operates on a similar system, which saw 420 megahertz of spectrum between 2 GHz and 3.6 GHz bands licensed for $7.4 billion in 2019. Currently, 5G shares radio frequencies with LTE networks, especially in the lower frequencies, which complicates the licensing process since licenses for those shares of the network are already in place. However, since LTE networks don’t operate on the highest frequencies utilized by 5G, those frequencies still largely remain unclaimed. Although, that will certainly change in the coming years as coverage expands. In this environment, the onus will be on industrial organizations to work with their network carriers to understand which frequencies they offer, what part of the spectrum their networks operate in and what level of 5G capability is available to them. With that information in hand, industrial organizations can easily identify the equipment necessary to properly leverage the 5G capabilities available.
Leading network equipment suppliers like Siemens offer an ever-expanding variety of Industrial 5G hardware solutions spanning every critical network point from routers to switches and industrial security appliances. For example, Siemens recently introduced its first wireless routers for Industrial 5G networks. The new SCALANCE M Series Industrial 5G wireless routers offer all of the 5G features specified in Release 15, provide simple and secure access to remote machinery using public 5G mobile wireless networks and can also connect to private Industrial 5G networks that allow users to leverage industry-specific 5G applications and achieve new potentials. Currently available in two models — the compact SCALANCE MUM853-1 router designed for cabinet use and the rugged, IP65 SCALANCE MUM8561-1 designed to be mounted on stationary and mobile equipment — the new SCALANCE M Series routers offer high-data-rate download speeds up to 1 Gb/s as well as maximum upload speeds of 500 Mb/s and support 4G — and even 3G — whenever 5G connectivity isn’t available, which allows them to be implemented immediately.
Siemens’ SCALENCE Series is globally renowned for delivering peak performance in harsh industrial environments and, in addition to the new wireless Industrial 5G routers, also offers solutions including the SCALENCE XB Series Ethernet switches, G6K Series AC/DC power supplies, connectors and Ethernet client modules.
Challenges Still Await
The Industrial 5G solutions currently available through RS and elsewhere in the market can go a long way toward future-proofing your network for the impending Industrial 5G revolution, but it is impossible to fully comprehend all of the challenges that industrial organizations will face during the transition at this stage.
As such, decisions to upgrade to Industrial 5G network technologies should be made deliberately and implemented gradually. It’s easy to view the coming revolution as a technological arms race, especially in competitive markets. But this is a mistake because Industrial 5G may not be available from the network providers in your particular area and your personnel may not be properly trained to provide due diligence during installation, which could open your organization to errors, security breaches and broken promises to consumers and shareholders. 5G may be the future, but if your organization isn’t prepared to leverage it properly, invest in research and strategy development before investing in products that you might not be prepared to utilize to their full potential.
And when you are ready to purchase Industrial 5G networking solutions, our experienced team here at RS is ready to help. For assistance identifying industrial data communications solutions optimized for your unique applications and use cases, contact your local RS representative at 1.866.433.5722 or reach out to technical support team. For additional information, please click through to the embedded links included in the article above and listed below.
- Siemens at RS
- Industrial Data Communications Products at RS
- Siemens SCALANCE Series Ethernet Switch Videos
- Siemens: Industrial 5G for the Industry of Tomorrow
- “Private 5G Networks: How Siemens has Changed the Nature of Industrial Protection”
- Siemens Webinar: “What Advantages Will Industrial 5G Bring to Industrial Verticals?”
