AACHEN, GERMANY – Ericsson and the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT are working together to explore use-cases for 5G in the manufacturing environment, developing application scenarios for production and testing them in a real environment.
The Initiative, which was launched by the three Fraunhofer Institutes in Aachen, is designed to enable companies involved in developments at the institute’s High Performance Center to manufacture sophisticated products either as single part or small batch orders more efficiently and more cost-effectively than was previously possible, by networking and digitalizing their production.
Under the ‘Networked Adaptive Production’ remit, the engineers in Aachen are planning extensive deployment of 5G technology for a diverse range of fields of application in which machines, production and communications systems as well as data bases are all interconnected. The belief is that, with its ultra-low latency, high data rates capability to run a multitude of devices simultaneously in a cell, 5G technology is particularly suitable for deployment in networked, adaptive production facilities with extensive measuring and control engineering. The reason for this is that running high-precision machine tools in complex production processes demands extremely high standards of communications, which must be stable and reliable. 5G technology will, for the first time, permit extensive use of wireless sensor connections for real time data analysis, ensuring adaptive control of production processes with short reaction times.
Stated Stefan Koetz, CEO at Ericsson: ‘Production and Industrie 4.0 are two key areas which stand to profit most from 5G technology. According to the latest edition of the Ericsson The 5G Business Potential report, 5G-based digitization, is set to generate an additional revenue stream of approximately €11.5 billion in 2026 for the ICT sector in Germany alone in these sectors – putting it in second place overall.’