As the first offline national industrial exhibition to be held under the premise of normalizing the epidemic prevention and control this year, the 22nd China International Industry Fair with the theme of “Intelligence and Interconnection-Empowering the New Development of the Industry” is being held in Shanghai. The China Industry Fair, which arrives in September every year, has become the best platform for the exchanges and interactions between Chinese industry and the world’s industry, and it also provides a window for observing new trends and new formats of manufacturing.
If 2019 is the first year of 5G commercial use, 2020 will be the key year for the landing of 5G applications. The industry generally believes that the large bandwidth, wide connection, and low latency of 5G have a greater role in promoting the industrial field than in the commercial field. How does 5G reshape the industrial scene? Although industrial 5G is gradually approaching, there is still an insurmountable development, testing, and verification process before it actually landed.
“Industrial 5G may take some time to actually use industrial scenarios, because industrial scenarios require extremely high reliability and accuracy.” “These two points are not necessary in many civilian scenarios, such as typing Suddenly the phone has a bad signal. It doesn’t matter if it is interrupted for a few seconds. After a few seconds, the signal is restored and the call can be continued. However, in industrial scenarios, even millisecond interruptions are not allowed. If communication is interrupted, data loss, etc. Situation, can lead to catastrophic results.”
To meet these two requirements, 5G standards need to be continuously improved. The 3GPP International Standards Development Organization officially announced the freezing of the latest R16 version of 5G at the 88th plenary meeting, which means that the first iterative upgrade version since the birth of 5G is fully completed. The so-called “frozen” means that the latest R16 version of the standard has been standardized, no changes will be made, and it will be officially applied in the future. From 3G, 4G and then to 5G era, each generation of mobile communication technology is not accomplished overnight. The process requires several years of technological innovation.
The industry believes that if R15 is an “usable” 5G standard that strives for rapid output, then R16 is a major upgrade from “usable” to “easy to use” 5G. It is reported that one of the most promising ones is to enhance the ability of the new air interface (NR) to be applied in vertical industries. The new technology supports 1 microsecond synchronization accuracy, 0.5-1 millisecond air interface delay, and “six nines” reliability. And flexible terminal group management, the fastest can achieve end-to-end delay within 5 milliseconds and higher reliability, providing support for industrial-level time sensitivity.
This means that under the R16 version, 5G has the ability to better support vertical industries, including unmanned driving, industrial Internet, smart transportation, telemedicine, etc.
The currently released version of R16 is in line with the 5G standard for industrial scenarios. “After the release, companies that research chips must make chips that meet industry standards. Based on the chips, 5G communication modules, switches, and networking companies like Siemens must develop corresponding products. Tests are conducted in scenarios. At present, Siemens has completed the construction of a 5G test bed at its headquarters in Germany, and is the first to conduct testing in the automotive industry. “In addition to the technical aspect of industrial 5G, the domestic planning of 5G communication frequency bands will also affect the business model. Siemens is actively maintaining communication with relevant government departments, such as sharing the German government’s industrial 5G plan.
Even if 5G solves the characteristics of low latency and high accuracy, the corresponding chips, products, business models, and industrial frequency bands are all clear. The industry still needs some time to truly realize the application of 5G in industrial scenarios. “5G may also be particularly suitable for certain industrial scenarios, but not for other industrial scenarios. The application of 5G in the industrial world needs to be gradually verified. This is a gradual process, just like Profinet (an innovation After the introduction of the open industrial Ethernet standard), the replacement of Profibus has also continued for about ten years.”
Will industrial 5G become a “luxury” for industrial enterprises in the short term after the launch of industrial 5G, pushing up the cost of enterprise transformation? Wang Haibin believes that it is impossible to generalize, “If you look at the bottom-level settings and communication architecture of industrial 5G, this architecture may appear more concise than the original industrial architecture. From the perspective of cost and economics, the 5G solution may not be more expensive. I think No conclusion can be drawn. It may not be expensive, but the reliability of the application in industry still needs a process of gradual verification.”
5G, edge computing, cloud computing, etc. represent the IT field, while industrial automation and machine equipment are the OT field. An important feature of the development of digital enterprises in the direction of “Industry 4.0” is the combination of IT and OT. In the past industrial 3.0/3.X era, OT and IT were separated, but now digital and intelligent enterprise IT and OT need to be integrated. This is the essence.
