Today, most industrial facilities still communicate via wires and cables. With the advent and adoption of the new 5G communications standard, that will all change.
With 5G peak download speeds of 20 Gb/s (gigabits per second) and 5G peak upload speeds of 10 Gb/s, wireless data transmission for comprehensive factory networks and equipment will communicate at speeds comparable or better than cables.
The potential of 5G implementation is truly mind boggling, particularly when you consider its huge effect on Industry 4.0, making factories much more productive and less costly to operate. 5G technology has the potential to integrate picking systems, industrial robots, quality control systems, warehousing and autonomous vehicles - harmoniously tying the entire manufacturing process together through a secure, ultrafast, and robust network.
All major industries, including chemicals, primary metals, water treatment, automobiles, aerospace, power generation and oil & gas production, are biding their time and evaluating the promise of 5G's features for their processes. For example, factories will be able to simultaneously transmit data for an astounding 1 million IIoT devices per square kilometer! This easily accommodates all the wireless field instruments for a production line or even an entire plant. Speeds for industrial 5G are at the lower end of the millisecond range. This means instant response to systems upsets or process abnormalities. With 5G, the virtues of augmented reality in the industrial environment will be fully realized, opening the door for a new level of interchange between man and industrial process.
There’s nothing new about wireless communication in industry. Private LTE (Long-Term Evolution) networks are already being used, and process control equipment companies have been successfully implementing Industrial WLAN for quite some time. But since 5G is not yet widely available, Industrial WLAN research and development continues in parallel. However, these networks are nowhere near 5G in terms of performance and speed.
Even though the international mobile radio standards organization 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project) published the commercial mobile wireless network standard for 5G in late 2018, there still are no published standards for the industrial 5G. 3GPP expects to have that completed by the middle of 2020.
Analynk Wireless, LLC
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