New industrial revolution and 6G
6G Symposium Spring 2021 commenced today. The opening panel discussion was on the new industrial revolution and 6G. The participants were Paul Hart, EVP and GM, RF Power, NXP Semiconductors and Dr. Andreas Mueller, Chairman, 5G-ACIA (5G Alliance for Connected Industries and Automation), and Bosch.
Paul Hart, NXP, said the history of wireless communications began with the need to connect people. Data also became key. 5G will help us to make everything connected. 6G will be about advancing society. Today, we are still in the early stages of the 5G super cycle. Rel-15 was launched last year. Rel-16 will be released in 2022, followed by Rel-17 and Rel-18 by 2024.
Advancing digital society
6G has the vision of advancing digital society with unlimited and ubiquitous connectivity. There will be full convergence of communications, computing, control, sensing, imaging, and security. 6G network will be seamless, purposeful. Networks will be driven by the use cases. There will be a global digital society, reducing inequalities, digital inclusion, safety and privacy, energy efficiency, etc.
The purposeful secure networks will allow digital wallets, intelligent networks, wireless infrastructure, etc. It will manage the inexorable rise of data traffic in a sustainable framework. The global mobile data traffic in exabyte/month will see a 100X rise by 2030. There will also be a holistic approach for energy optimization. It will be intelligently complementing cloud with edge. Process nodes will continue to shrink in future.
There will be full dimensional coverage, with seamless end-to-end service and seamless multi-access continuity. The 5G or 6G network of tomorrow will connect with cellular V2X, etc. The road ahead is about cross-industry collaboration. 6G will be driven by diverse goals and partnerships. There will be a vibrant ecosystem supported by secure and resilient supply chain. 6G will be a transformational journey for the society.
Role of 5G for Industry 4.0
Dr. Andreas Mueller, 5G-ACIA, spoke about the role of 5G for Industry 4.0 to connect all kinds of things. Connectivity is the key technology for enabling Industry 4.0. A 5G-enabled factory will enable everything. It will enhance industrial IoT, and promote industrial 5G worldwide. It will also develop a sustainable industrial 5G ecosystem.
We are not yet fully there with industrial 5G. Industrial 5G is revolutionary. There is still work to be done with industrial 5G. The same applies to many other vertical domains. Performance validation is still ongoing across the real-world factory environments. It is about time-sensitive networking (TSN) for the factory. The ecosystem also needs to grow from scratch. Enterprises are also adjusting their business models.
The research of 5G started with the METIS project. 5G-ACIA has made some significant contributions such as use cases and requirements, TSN support, NPNs, etc. The 3GPP Rel-16 was completed in 2020 with strong IIoT focus. The future will look at device profiles, OPC UA integration, testbeds and validation, reference architectures, and future features.
10 aspects for industrial 5G development
There are 10 key aspects for further development of industrial 5G. These are: strong focus on vertical industries, non-public networks 2.0, sophisticated self-management, backwards compatibility for 20+ years, flexibility and modularity, advanced QoS requirements, open interfaces and full virtualization, additional functionalities supported by the network, sustainability and efficiency, and simpler, direct vertical engagement.
He invited more people to participate with 5G-ACIA.
PRADEEP's TECHPOINTS 