Want to know how to scale private 5G across manufacturing plants and manufacturing applications? Well, European aviation and aerospace manufacturer Airbus knows how. Of course, if you have followed the Airbus story in these pages, or caught its feature presentations and panel discussions at events, then you will know that, as well – that Airbus knows how to devise and deliver a multi-market private 5G network. So, why don’t we just ask it?
At 5G Manufacturing Forum last month, Enterprise IoT Insights got the chance – in a Q&A session that went under the same heading (How to scale…), which also carried-over from Private Networks Europe Forum the month before (see: Flight of the navigator). Hakim Achouri, 5G and IoT expert for digital aviation at the firm, fielded the questions, and spoke in some detail, at some length, about how Airbus has come to lead Industry 4.0 from a 5G point of view.
A transcript of the conversation is printed below; Achouri says Airbus is going way beyond 11 networks at 11 sites, expanding beyond its core European manufacturing bases in France and Germany, to also deploy private 5G in Canada, China, Spain, the UK, and the US. And it is doing so with a cookie-cutter blueprint, effectively – based on the principle that what works once works every time (counter to the SI narrative that every plant is different).
Architecturally, it is pretty straightforward, he declares – some radio planning, but not much; two-weeks, from start to finish, with an 80/20 rule for applications on top, as well. “But really, that is the fun part,” he says. What else to take from the conversation, briefly, as advice for how to scale? The key message, it seems, is to take control, and be bold. Because enterprises know their business best, and because late-LTE and early-5G is good to be going on with.
So get a move along, says Achouri, because there are experiences to draw on, partners to call on, and gains to be made. But this story, about what scale looks like and how to achieve it, is for Airbus to tell – as (arguably) the only industrial company that, as yet, in early December 2022, really knows how to tell it. Fade to white; Achouri (pictured below, right) comes into picture…
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How does Airbus see the Industry 4.0 market? How do you see progress so far with private cellular in manufacturing?
Achouri: “It is evolving in the right direction. We started four years ago, and it was too early somehow. Today, we see more spectrum harmonization in many countries. Which remains a key challenge. More generally for Airbus, we track progress by value-proofing different verticals. We follow the market, of course, [but we also] try to be proactive. Sometimes we find [are] early adopters, which is the case with private cellular. And we are influencers, too, because we like to go back to [the industry to] influence the roadmap in a way.”
Rewind four years to Toulouse, and explain the journey to here. Has the strategy changed very much?
Achouri: “The strategy has not changed, only the scale. Four years ago we started with a small pilot, at this very precise location in Toulouse, delivering cellular for one [use case] – for test and validation of airplanes. Which was successful. But in parallel we started to embark on many other indoor and outdoor use cases, from manufacturing execution to quality inspection using AR and VR… and all these [aspects of] our day-to-day manufacturing work… in [all] different locations and positions – on the shop floor, around the airplane, inside the airplane, and so forth.
“And back in the day, most of them proved to be efficient with LTE – in this complex and harsh industrial environment. We have done other things, as well. We have worked with Airbus Defence and Space on the (EU-funded) BroadWay demonstrator project for mission-critical [comms], which was very successful, and involved roaming and quality of service going from public to private networks, or from country to country. We like to think we are taking this to the next step with this kind of innovation… not only for mission-critical comms, but also for the supply chain, and things like this.
“But today, we are delivering AMR and AGV connectivity in various Airbus plants, [including] in the production of the new (long-range low-fuel) Airbus A321XRL, which comes with disruptive reshuffling of several production lines with much higher [levels of] automation. And [in this scenario]… 5G becomes key. So the story today is that things are scaling and that we want to achieve even more with private 5G across all our facilities and all our divisions, including in helicopters, defense, and space.”
Purely in terms of scale; Airbus had six or seven private LTE/5G sites a while ago, and more scheduled in the UK and Spain, taking the total to 11. How many deployments are kind of live or pending across Europe now?
Achouri: “Most of our deployments are in France and Germany, where we have our biggest assembly lines. We have just deployed in Spain, and we will deploy in the UK in 2023. But the picture is much bigger than Europe, now, to be honest – because today we are aligning with our facilities in the US and Canada, as well as in China. And similarly, we are also spreading this design to cross-division strategies. We see the same demand for helicopter [production] at [other] sites in France and Germany. So there is a reusability strategy, as well. Not every division will have the same requirements, of course – [especially with] defense and space. But helicopter [manufacturing] is similar; we use the same tools, and it could be much more efficient. So yes, the picture is much bigger than just those 11 sites.”
Can you talk about vendor partners – who you’re closest with for core and RAN solutions? Airbus appears to be mixing it up a whole lot, looking at open RAN strategies, too. Can you talk around all of that?
Achouri: “We partnered with Ericsson when we started four years ago, using an Ericsson [network] with Airbus’ own LAN/WAN security infrastructure. And Ericsson remains a partner of choice – its solutions are proven; they work. Having said that, we have to be agile; our door is open… We were with Nokia in Finland last week, for example; we know Athonet and Mavenir. Our door is not closed to anybody, to be honest. You have to be careful about the migration (upgrade) plans, of course; today, we are moving up a level of the technology.
“We will go through a technical assessment; our technical requirements are quite strong. But other non-technical aspects need to be taken into account, as well – requirements for network management, lifecycle management, remote access, and so forth. There are also newcomers in the market, and we are strongly looking [at them] on the core network side. Which includes the hybrid models from the hyperscalers – the 5G MEC solution from Azure, and the [private 5G solution] from AWS – AWS is still quite niche, mainly targeting the US; but there is something happening, and we need to be close to it.
“On open RAN; it is of interest to us. Not specifically for [production environments] because, at the end of the day, you need a good quality network. But… if we look at defense and non-terrestrial space satellites… then open RAN can play a role. For me, as it stands, open RAN just for private networks is not enough. Components of open RAN are interesting – [like the] ‘RAN intelligent controller’ (RIC) and these kinds of things [which might] create more market share for startups [to] create value-added localization services, for example, based on open RAN APIs. This is the cool part of open RAN. But as a technology in critical infrastructure, it is too early [for open RAN].”
You mentioned the hyperscalers; is the message that, so far as mission-critical manufacturing networks go, you are more comfortable with solutions from traditional providers? And that the AWS star stuff, say, is interesting but for less-critical deployments? Is that right?
Achouri: “It is more complex than that. Because [all private network providers] tend to go with a hybrid model, where part of the infrastructure is on-premise and part of it is the cloud. The hyperscaler model is much more integrated, as-a-service inside their global cloud offerings. Which is interesting, of course – [but] difficult today in terms of cybersecurity for a mission-critical company like Airbus. The same for nuclear power plants, for example – where a cloud-based private LTE solution would clearly not be accepted [as a fully cloud-integrated proposition]. We talk about private cloud platforms which are cybersecurity reviewed and stamped… but these are very different from the public cloud itself. So it is early days, but it is [also] interesting – when you look at the level of automation the hyperscalers can offer compared to traditional vendors.”
In terms of new deployments and upgrades, is there a priority for rolling out LTE or 5G to new sites, or to upgrade existing LTE sites to 5G, or to do both of these things?
Achouri: “Both. Whenever we can do 5G NSA, we do it – based on the availability of spectrum, of course. For us, 5G SA is in the design phase and will be delivered through pilots in Q2 and Q3 next year. We need to be careful, of course; this is a production network. If a production line stops because the technology is not ready [then] it will be painful. So we have to choose the tech that works end-to-end, in different locations with different regulations… Most offerings are dual-core; 5G SA and 4G SA, with some NSA in the middle. So it is a straight evolution. Everything will be tested.”
You talked earlier about scalability through reusability and replication – that what works in one plant will work in a similar plant, essentially. Is it a cookie cutter approach, effectively – where network solutions can be designed and installed quite easily now in similar sites?
Achouri: “Yes, because we’ve built the backbone already. The backbone is the most important step, which means we have a design pattern that we can roll-out to a new site very quickly – stamped by colleagues and architects in IT and cybersecurity. So it is fully integrated with all the other technologies we have – completely overlaid and integrated. And if we need to roll out a new site, we know exactly – we have a template, already. We go there, do some radio studies, and it is deployed. It takes a few weeks. With regards to the use cases, 80 percent of our industrial sites use the same digital tools. So again, yes, it is very similar. But we still have specifics [at each site] that require closer vertical integration. But really, that is the fun part.”
I came off a session at Private Networks Forum last time where the talk from the big SIs was that the integration part is the hard part – and that no two sites, even in the same organisation, are the same. It sounds like the message from Airbus is that they are the same, broadly, and that you have a recipe card that says how to mix it together. Is that correct?
Achouri: “Well, in a way, yes. It is a question about who is delivering the [network]. Internal people know their own infrastructure better than external SIs. There is a transition phase with a new SI. Understanding the complex infrastructure within an enterprise takes some time… The way Airbus works is we have dedicated experts for lots of technologies – which internally decide on the roadmaps and do the architectural design. In the end, the SI is integrated through change management, for example. I do the design but the change is executed by the SI. But the Airbus experts are key here because they are the ones that decide if a technology is good or not. That’s the message. But we accept help, of course, and we work closely with mobile operators and system integrators. Because we need them. It is just that the decision making process is ours.”
Just on all the different technologies, and with regards specifically connectivity technologies; Airbus has a bunch of stuff besides cellular – like Ethernet and Wi-Fi, clearly, but also including LoRa and Sigfox. Just explain how that kind of networking soup is ordered, if you like – how they all play. Will cellular come in over the top and make some of those others redundant? Or does everything have its place?
Achouri: “Yes, so not all of these technologies will survive, and some are already disappearing thanks to private LTE, including some that have been around at Airbus for 20 years. With regards to LoRa and Sigfox, they are currently delivering IoT, and they have both been selected via a unique service provider. Now, why LoRa and Sigfox? Because they don’t have exactly the same pattern of usage [actually]. Sigfox is used [on public networks]. But we send fewer messages with Sigfox than with LoRa, which is [enabled on] our own private network inside the campuses – mostly for multi-metering.
“Of course, LTE offers low-power cellular IoT, as well. We are looking into this. We have commissioned a study… and we need to prepare the route ahead. [But] I am not going to argue about which will survive because… technologies disappear all the time, and others gets stronger because they have better business models. Airbus does not decide any of that. But if I look at cellular IoT, I think it will be the next big thing for the IoT part of Airbus. It will take some time; device availability is quite poor, and it will not replace everything. But look ahead two or three years, and surely it will come.”
On use cases; you talked before about AMRs and AGVs, and I suppose they work even better with 5G. But Airbus has also said to me previously that 90 or 95 percent (or something) of industrial IoT use cases are well served by LTE already. So the question is: does the shift to private 5G just mean scaling up existing use cases, or does it mean brand new unknowable use cases? I suspect it is both again, but give me a sense of that.
Achouri: “Yes and no. That 95 percent figure is a few years old, I think. For me, basically the more speed we have, the better the user experience overall. So 5G is better than 4G. But everything has to be looked at from the end-to-end perspective. As it is today, 5G is just another G – which is faster. But more-complex features are coming [down the line], which are not available in vendor products yet; things like your URLLC will be required in some use cases, like AR for remote rendering. TSN is very important for Industrial robotics. We can do some things with LTE, but, step-by-step, we are expecting even more with 5G. If you open the technology up, and look inside, then LTE is more rigid in a way, and more complex to configure. 5G is more open; [you can] automate the core network with other IT tools. So we need to be ready for 5G, but we are building on an LTE base already today.”
Which use cases are you activating first? Which are you seeing really good traction with now?
Achouri: “Lots, to be honest. We are trying to solve a lot of them at the same time… The more endpoints on my network, the better it is. Today, the biggest subject is the MES (manufacturing execution system) – so worker augmentation for example. Workers use digital tools to build the aeroplanes, and they need strong connectivity for them. This is the main topic. AGVs are becoming more popular, which is cool to see; we have robots as well. Digital twins are much more complex when we look at the Airbus picture. So, manufacturing execution, supply chain logistics with AGVs, mission critical voice – these are the main domains. Robotics will come later. AR/VR is already here; we are deploying 1,000 smart glasses for worker augmentation, for use on both Wi-Fi and 4G/5G.”
And just quickly. Much of this Industry 4.0 market remains in pilot, way behind where Airbus is. What is your message to other manufacturing companies to get started?
Achouri: “Just try it. It can be at a small scale, and if you don’t understand you can get help. It really brings value. It is not just wireless; it is also services that are built into the technology. And the more the merrier as well, because it will grow the ecosystem, and the regulators, and make things cheaper as well. So my message is to come on in.”
