A private 5G network with connections to sensors to automate, monitor and provide predictive maintenance for factory equipment is now installed at the Digital Manufacturing Institute and the National Center for Cybersecurity in Manufacturing (MxD) in Chicago, where it will serve as a real-world model for companies investigating the potential benefits of Industry 4.0 technologies and applications.
The network, covering MxD’s Factory Floor Lab, is one of the first indoor private 5G deployments in the U.S., according to Betacom, a provider of private 5G wireless networks and managed services, which installed the 5G network in partnership with Airspan Networks, a 5G radio access network vendor, and Druid Software, a provider of 5G core software. Betacom is managing the network for MxD through its cloud-based Security and Service Operations Center (SSOC) built on Zero Trust security design principles.
During a panel session and facility tour at MxD last week, Johan Bjorklund, CEO of Betacom, said, “This is really a great playground for innovation right where in a non-production environment innovation teams can come together and innovate and really further develop this application system and the whole ecosystem that wraps around that.”
The 3.5 GHz 5G network, which went live last week, follows the deployment of a 4G network at the site three months ago that started the migration from wireline connectivity and Wi-Fi at the MxD site to private wireless, although all of these technologies will continue to be used at MxD in some respect. The move to 5G comes at a time when 5G has become common in public networks, but generally speaking is lagging further behind for private network deployment. Even though 5G can provide the low latency that connected manufacturing equipment requires to operate, companies in this sector may still need some time to evaluate their use cases and develop applications.
The parties involved in the deployment are looking to help them do that, during the panel session discussed network capabilities , manufacturing use cases for private 5G and related topics. The panel was moderated by Joe Madden, founder and president of Mobile experts, and included representatives from Betacom, MxD, Airspan and Intel, which provided use case and application expertise for the deployment.
“If you look at this from a business perspective, we could talk a lot about use cases, but I guess there are three things I am very excited about with this network,” said Tony Del Sesto, Digital Manufacturing Technical Fellow at MxD. “One is flexibility. If you think about a private system, factories are dynamic. If I have a big machine connected, and I'm losing signal strength, I can just move an antenna in, put in another radio unit. It's a private system, so you have the flexibility to configure the hardware and software. The other thing… mission-critical control is very attractive, because as the manufacturer you control what traffic is, and you can configure virtual networks for different types of traffic within the factory. I might have one network I want high bandwidth, one network where I have low latency, or one network where I have really sensitive control equipment. And I think lastly, the thing that's very attractive for manufacturers is when you look at coverage per dollars, I find that the mid-band coverage gives you some of the biggest bang for your buck.”
Bob Pike, General Manager, Intel Smart Edge at Intel, whose expertise lies in industrial software and systems engineering, said, “For use cases, automation [automated control of equipment] is some of it, but I think you talk about just supporting the mobile worker in various ways. For specific use cases, think computer vision-based inspection of equipment or tracking inventory that is being moved around in a large factory.”
Airspan President and COO Glenn Laxdal chimed in, “There are a myriad of automated use cases whether you're talking about smart warehousing, smart manufacturing, oil and gas mining, transportation. What will happen is that devices, whatever the device is that you want to be controlling, 4G and 5G-enabled capable sensors will make their way into those devices, and those devices will be controlled by the network we're creating.”
Laxdal added, “You see factories becoming just like data centers with all these sensors everywhere gathering data that needs to be analyzed… and you need a new network computing model, like edge computing, to be able to take advantage of that. Private networks like this can become the tip of the spear for that new way of computing.”
Industry 4.0 may bring automation top of mind, but as Pike suggested, the next generation of digital manufacturing - Industry 5.0 - will be all about using technology to support human employees. For example, on a tour of the Factory Floor Lab, Del Sesto demonstrated how “portable work instructions” for assembling a component could be displayed as light projections on the work surfaces to help train employees, or assistant factory workers roving between different stations. An employee taking components from different bins for assembly also could be warned via sensor-based alarms if they are not proceeding in the correct order.
This kind of application also can help employees come to grips with the changing nature of manufacturing facilities and the massive batches of data that are being collected around them and are being fed back into the operation in the form of insights. Pike described the “convergence of OT and IT” – operation technology and information technology – as a challenging time for the people who manage and work at manufacturing facilities.
Del Sesto agreed, 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 do people stay up to date on all this data, all these data feeds that are happening in your factory? How does a person ingest that when they're on the go? For example, there's a lot of discussion in industry about digital twins. Well, if you've got a mobile worker wandering around, how can they monitor that digital twin in real time? Computer-vision inspection helps. There’s a lot of bandwidth, latency, flexibility that goes along with the mobility, and how that integrates with people in your factory is where the big opportunities are going forward.”