5G is the new and improved fifth generation of wireless networking technology.
It promises to achieve reduced latency with near real time speeds – allowing larger transfers of data to be achieved quickly – have far more devices connected all at the same time and become a more stable and reliable solution to cellular and industrial networking alike.
With the gradual release of 5G networking around the world, there are many questions on what the benefits of 5G entail. For starters, 5G is able to provide speeds of around 10-30 Gbps, equating to approximately 10 to 20 times faster than what 4G offers. This exponential increase in speeds – although already fast enough to support industrial applications – ensures a much more reliable connection than anything else on offer.
Due to the low latency speeds 5G provides (4 to 5 times faster than what 4G offers), it can support big data transfers which are required by industrial applications that involve real-time communications. Another bonus for the transfer of data sets is the development of 5G means it can handle a thousand times the bandwidth of 4G networks.
Energy efficiency is a focal point among the industrial sector, with operations relying on vast amounts of power to function at the capacity needed. Low energy efficiency results in high energy bills, which is why the implementation of 5G for industries will be invaluable for the processes and operations within that sector, due to it using 90% less energy per bit of data transferred than 4G networks.
While 4G networks are able to connect to a hundred thousand devices per square kilometre, 5G greatly furthers their reach increasing the support to a million devices per square kilometre, giving them up to 10 times more support than the 4G network can handle.
Unlike 4G networks which were geared more towards furthering cellular networking, 5G was built with the industrial environment in mind, providing more power where needed for high consumption operations within factories. 4G has its limits within the industrial environment, caused by reinforced walls and electromagnetic waves, in turn lowering the impact on how the network transfers data. 5G eliminates these challenges, data is able to penetrate through the reinforced walls providing high bandwidth and low latency.
Due to 5G not having to rely on centralised masts or stations and instead being provided through decentralised boxes or cell sites, 5G can be installed in remote locations closer to industrial facilities, causing the costs of supplying connectivity to facilities in remote areas to reduce.
With the fifth generation of networking on the rise and offering more stability and flexibility, industries hope to utilise this to help achieve promises for industry 4.0.
The future of factories implementing 5G is set to revolutionise the whole industrial process, allowing a more reliable means to transfer data and ensuring that communications between machine-machine, machine-to device and equipment to cloud are exponentially faster than it had been with 4G networks. Efficiency, productivity and safety are established to be some of the main areas which will be benefitting from the 5G factory due to the instantaneous data transfer promised.
Programmable logic controllers (PLCs) would always be physically installed and connected to a network using a wired connection, resulting in costly and disruptive methods of setting up. With 5G, the need for wired connections would be greatly reduced by employing a method of controlling automated systems through an industrial cloud platform, removing the need for wires and building a path towards industry 4.0’s goals for a fully digitised factory.
EXOR are ready to build a future to accommodate industry 4.0’s concepts and ideas, developing powerful edge devices and helping to bring together a reliable connected digital industrial environment.
