With 5G already having a big impact on consumers, the next step is to apply the latest generation of cellular and attendant technologies like edge computing, artificial intelligence, and machine learning, to high-value vertical industries. Given its critical role in feeding the global supply chain, the manufacturing sector is of particular interest and, as such, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. is investing in critical research and product development to enable digital transformation of factories.
Replacing wired factory floors with wireless 5G, “That allows you to have massive data connectivity,” Qualcomm Senior Director of Technology Xiaoxia Zhang explained. “With this massive connectivity we can have real-time access to the data and analytics. Those data analytics are allowing us to have greater observability, and then higher reliability and better operational efficiency. If you do everything with wires in order to achieve data connectivity, things will not be as scalable and it will be less efficient and less flexible.”
Due to complex environmental conditions that can hinder radio propagation, the need for ultra-high reliability for critical systems, and incredibly low latency to ensure responsiveness of assets, 5G was designed from the ground up to support manufacturing use cases like precision robotics, precise positioning for autonomous guided vehicles, and augmented reality for remote worker assistance. Qualcomm is addressing the opportunities with coordinated multi-point (CoMP) technology to ensure reliable connectivity, time sensitive networking for deterministic services, and sidelink which allows direct device-to-device communication thereby improving network capacity.
“For traditional [enhanced mobile broadband] traffic,” Zhang said, “the delay requirement and also the reliability requirement is much more relaxed compared to lots of industrial applications. The way 5G [will] tackle industrial applications is to introduce a spatial technique where we can achieve much more reliability and much lower latency at the same time.” Typically reliability comes at the expense of latency.
Based on research produced by IHS Markit, 5G will drive more than $13 trillion in sales activity by 2035, create nearly 23 million jobs in that time period, and support a more than 10% increase in global GDP. Focusing more near-term on 2021 to 2025, Accenture sees 5G having a major impact on global manufacturing, increasing productivity by between 20% and 30%, improving assembly efficiency by 50%, extending asset life by 20%, and pushing defect detection up to 90%.
Watch the RCR Interview: 5G Industrial IoT here.
For more content, including demos and live interviews, from Qualcomm’s recent Advanced 5G Research Demonstrations for MWC ’21 click here.
