Technical hurdles and challenges to be solved

Data flow from the sensor or machine to the cloud. © Schildknecht

5G is not a single technical specification or technology, but a "bouquet" of very different components:

mm-waves: The mm range in the wavelength scale begins at around 20 Ghz.

Massive MIMO: The performance of these services is based on the necessary 3-dimensional antenna technology.

Beamforming: Directional antenna beams are used for this in order to be able to send the RF energy to specific points or receive it accordingly.

Full duplex: Transmission and reception take place simultaneously on different frequencies.

Small cell networks: To enable high subscriber density, very small cells with an extension of only a few 100 m are used, which requires a large number of antenna sites.

The technologies for many of the performance data forecast for the final expansion of 5G have yet to be developed. Although there is already a specification for 5G NR (New Radio), the current 5G radio technology (Release 15), a Fraunhofer Institute recently predicted a need for research into massive MIMO, for example, at the Wireless Congress at the end of 2018 in order to accommodate a 16×16 antenna array in a smartphone at chip level. Without Massive MIMO, however, the high data rate cannot be achieved.

For 5G, users will therefore only experience a gradual upward adjustment of the data rate over the next five to seven years and the first implementations in 2020 will hardly show any advantages over 4G. This is also due to the fact that the backbone (infrastructure) of the mobile network first has to adapt to the high data rates. Ultimately, the weakest component determines the data throughput: it will be years before all base stations are connected with 25 Gbit/s fiber optics.

New 5G business models are required

Example of communication of a realized IIoT customer project in the field of remote condition monitoring based on LTE technology. © Schildknecht

Many technical details - such as the frequencies and the respective network operators - are still unknown. However, new players are entering the market with the large network providers, who will stand between device manufacturers and device users and therefore require new business models. The question arises as to who will then take responsibility for ensuring that the QoS (Quality of Service) of a system is maintained. Up to now, mobile network providers have only promised "best effort" for consumer applications - as good as possible; however, this will not satisfy industrial companies under any circumstances. In addition, the new frequencies will be subject to a fee, which will have a corresponding impact on their economic use: The billions invested in acquiring licenses and building the network must be amortized.

There will also be more frequencies and more network operators than before and the number of independent networks will increase significantly as a result. This will lead to an attractive solution for large companies to install their own high-performance network with its own frequency directly on the company premises. These independent company networks can then be further divided up by "slicing" and used to optimize various internal company processes. This solution will certainly only provide added value compared to the current situation for large companies; for small and medium-sized companies, the 4G (LTE) and WLAN technologies in the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz range that have been used successfully to date will continue to be technically sufficient and more attractive in terms of cost; a transition to 5G will probably only occur hesitantly here.

The variety of different frequencies presents device manufacturers and their suppliers (component manufacturers) with considerable challenges in terms of the number of variants. This is already an issue that is difficult to manage today: while there were only four frequency bands for 2G and six for 3G, there are already 12 bands for 4G, each of which requires different device variants. This situation will become even more acute with 5G, especially as the 5G frequency bands are not standardized internationally, which will increase device costs. The chip cycles of around two years familiar from consumer applications are also unacceptable in industrial applications. It is already clear today that 4G world radios with long-term availability are factors more expensive than solutions developed for consumer applications.

After all, all devices equipped with a radio interface must be certified in each country or economic area (EU); and in the case of mobile communications, some providers require additional certification, for example in the USA. In the case of worldwide approval, this can easily result in certification costs of 500,000 euros per device, plus the costs for subsidiaries in the respective country, for example in Russia or China. Depending on the country, certification costs may be incurred again with each hardware change.

Private networks and base stations

Large industrial companies, such as those in the automotive industry, are in the starting blocks for the use of local 5G frequencies, which will enable them to set up their own base stations and thus allow an exclusively usable frequency and bandwidth. This is a long-cherished wish of the automation technology industry, which has been pursued in the relevant committees such as the VDI/GMA Technical Committee 5.21 for 20 years. With an exclusive frequency as the primary user, higher transmission power is also possible compared to WLAN. The coexistence properties specified in EN 300328 for the 2.4 GHz band, such as listen-before-talk, are then obsolete. In theory, a higher transmission power should enable more stable transmissions. The first applications will have to prove the extent to which the high frequencies between 20 and 60 GHz will make this possible in practice in the factory environment.

Outlook until 2023

It will still be some time before 5G technology and its providers have a real presence on the market. At the same time, there will initially only be a few automation technology projects for which the existing 4G technology is not sufficient and whose operators are willing to make the leap to 5G technology. The first implementations will probably take place in the form of pilot projects on the premises of large companies - the first companies have already expressed their interest in this - but a corresponding willingness on the part of the device manufacturers is then also required for implementation. We estimate that the first industrial 5G implementations in factory and process automation, such as communication between different systems, machines and sensors or driverless transport systems, etc., will not become visible until 2023.

Thomas Schildknecht, wireless expert and CEO of Schildknecht / ag

Congress "5G in industry and logistics"

Congress "5G in Industry and Logistics" by WEKA BUSINESSMEDIEN in October 2019. © WBM

5G is becoming a decisive competitive factor on the way to networked production - from product development and manufacturing to intralogistics and goods dispatch. In the future, applications such as driverless transport systems, mobile tools, human-machine collaboration and robots will function via high-performance wireless technologies.
The "5G for Industry and Logistics" congress provides basic knowledge about 5G data communication and highlights the importance and opportunities of 5G for production, intralogistics and transportation.
Further information: www.5G-Kongress.de