5G for Industry 4.0: Enabling Features, Deployment Options and Test Considerations
Article Reprints
Cellular technology is expanding beyond traditional consumer applications, with 5G’s foray into the industrial space garnering increasing support across the world. Four countries—France, Germany, Japan and the U.K.—have allocated 5G spectrum for private networks. Another 12 are considering taking the same measures.
In the last few years, the manufacturing and cellular industries have invested much effort into defining the use cases needed to implement Industry 4.0. For this new phase in the industrial revolution, 5G enables several exciting applications, including:
- Advanced predictive maintenance, which could potentially reduce equipment downtime by as much as 9 percent
- Precision control and monitoring, which leverages wireless connectivity between sensors to increase machines’ range of motion
- Augmented reality and remote experts, which enable humans to be involved in specific tasks remotely, potentially reducing equipment downtime by 25 percent
- Remote robot control, which refers to the control logic of a robot