Nokia is building private LTE and 5G coverage for the ARENA2036 automotive research factory in Stuttgart in collaboration with members of the German car and manufacturing industries, including Daimler, Bosch and TRUMPF.
Nokia will provide full private 4G/LTE and 5G New Radio coverage for the factory, and help to validate industrial use cases. ARENA2036 said 5G is key for factory-based functions like robotics and automation, and higher flexibility of manufacturing setups.
Peter Froeschle, managing director ARENA2036, commented: “5G is the essential building block of the factory of the future where moving robot arms, automatic guided vehicles and production cells that can be reconfigured overnight are the norm.”
Wolfgang Hackenberg, managing director of Nokia in Germany, said: “The factory of the future will be more automated, flexible, and as a result, more productive. This can only be achieved with ultra-reliable wireless connectivity between machines, robots and vehicles in all steps of the production process.”
ARENA2036, founded in 2014 with funds from the Federal Ministry of Research as an ‘active research environment for the next-generation of automobiles’, is geared towards the design of an automobile with “integrated functionality and sustainable engineering”.
The 2036 in its name denotes the year the automobile turns 150, and the deadline for its vision. The research venture is managed by the University of Stuttgart, with around 35 partner enterprises.
A prerequisite for the next generation of production technology is a 5G, which will bring the advent of ultra-reliable low-latency communications (URLLC), and higher industrial control. “Industrial digitalisation and automation can already start today with private LTE infrastructure, evolving to 5G as spectrum and industrial devices become available,” said Nokia.
The Finnish vendor has already started with the installation of private LTE and 5G trial systems. Nokia will validate key use cases for secure remote access, mobile manipulation, massive sensor networks, wireless safety, vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communications, localisation and edge cloud implementations.
Froeschle commented: “Nokia’s end-to-end 5G solution fulfils the stringent requirements we had in terms of availability, latency and reliability to create a flexible and cost-efficient production line that will enable large scale rollouts of next generation customisable cars.”
Hackenberg said: “ARENA2036 is an ambitious project and a prestigious venture to be part of. It will help us in strengthening our partnerships with major industry players and further advancing our campus solutions.”
