5G-Enabled Smart Manufacturing
5G has from its early standardization been scoped to address new industrial use cases including smart manufacturing. To this end the communication requirements for industrial use cases have been analyzed and novel capabilities for 5G have been specified. Some of the new capabilities of 5G for smart manufacturing and the industrial internet of things (IIoT) are ultra-reliable and low latency communication (URLLC), support for 5G non-public (campus) networks, support of Ethernet and Time-Sensitive Networking, inbuilt positioning and time synchronization. 5G for manufacturing is being investigated in several collaborative research activities. In the 5G Alliance for Connected Industries and Automation (5G-ACIA), more than 80 members from the operational technology (OT) and the information and communication technology (ICT) industries have gathered to form a global forum to shape 5G for the industrial domain. 5G-ACIA has investigated industrial use cases, such as factory and process automation, advanced robotics, and defined requirements on the 5G system that have been fed into the 5G standardization process. Validation of 5G for such use cases is ongoing in 5G-ACIA endorsed testbeds. The panel will provide an overview of the Smart Manufacturing use cases and requirements, the capabilities of 5G for IIoT and its evolution and learnings from early testbeds.