5G-Industry Campus Europe: Products

5G-Industry Campus Europe – interactive Online-App

Using an interactive app, the Aachen University campus is presented as an industrial 5G research testbed. Visitors can discover eight use cases of 5G in production, which specifically deal with the implementation of the various 5G features. Furthermore, visitors get an insight into the infrastructure available to the IPT at the Melaten campus for research purposes and into the most important characteristics of 5G technology.

More on 5G-Industry Campus Europe - interactive online app

Highlight-Video 5G-Industry Campus Europe

The video introduces the 5G research campus "5G-Industry Campus Europe" (5G -ICE). With four indoor and one area-wide outdoor 5G network, the many possibilities of using 5G in production are fully researched and demonstrated. In addition to setting up the research infrastructure, various practice-relevant issues from the complete spectrum of production technology will be investigated in the fully equipped machine halls of the research institutes as part of the funded project, ranging from 5G sensor technology for monitoring manufacturing processes to mobile robotics and logistics up to cross-site production chains.

5G-Audit

With low latencies and high data rates, the new 5G mobile communications technology offers enormous potential for production. With the 5G Audit, Fraunhofer IPT supports customers in exploiting the potential of 5G. The 5G Audit is a modular concept consisting of seminars, consultations and guided tours. In five modules, it is shown how 5G technology can be used to successfully make the transition to digitalization in production and what potentials and challenges the implementation of 5G holds.

More on the 5G-Audit on the Website of the IPT or in the overview document.

5G-Millimeter-Wave-Testbed, 26 GHz

The collision detection use case deals with the detection of unintentional contact between the machining tool and the component during a milling process. As part of the 5G-Industry Campus Europe, a sensor is attached to the component that detects the collision so quickly that the machine can be stopped in time at any time. In this way, sometimes immense damage, for example to the machine spindles, can be reliably avoided without human intervention. To achieve the required response times, fast, reliable and wireless communication is needed.

The 5G test system achieves even higher data rates and lower latencies in the mm-wave spectrum.

A new modular test system from Ericsson is used to meet the required URLLC specifications in this use case. For this purpose, the test system operates in the millimeter wavelength range (mm-Wave), a new 5G spectrum with frequencies between 24 and 28 gigahertz that can be applied for from the German Federal Network Agency with immediate effect. While more than 80 companies have secured stationary 5G systems of the 3.7 to 3.8 gigahertz frequency range in Germany, the millimeter wavelength range is so far new and hardly tested in production.

However, the larger spectral range allows even higher data rates and lower latencies than previous systems, so that particularly time-critical applications such as collision detection can now also be implemented.

ICNAP – 5G for closed loop manufacturing 

The International Center for Networked, Adaptive Production (ICNAP) was founded at the end of 2018 as a joint initiative of the North Rhine-Westphalian state government and the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft with active support from industry. The goal of the initiative is to establish an open research platform and an industrial test environment in which innovative approaches to digitization in production can be developed and evaluated under realistic conditions. There are now 24 industrial partners, ranging from IT system providers and plant manufacturers to manufacturing companies, working together with the three Aachen-based Fraunhofer Institutes Fraunhofer IPT, Fraunhofer ILT and Fraunhofer IME, forming a heterogeneous group that ideally complements each other.

The partners define the topics and research projects at the annual meetings of the ICNAP community. Continuous technical exchange takes place in seven working groups, which are organized thematically: "Sensor Systems and Data Acquisition," "Interfaces and Connectivity," "Data Synchronization and Middleware," "Data Modeling and Data Analytics," "Digital Twinningin the Product Lifecycle," "Cloud Systems and IT Architecture," and "Digital Business Models." Each year, specific topics are chosen as a study and worked on within the year. For 2021, one of the studies deals with the topic "5G for closed loop manufacturing".

Automation is one of the major goals of the factory of the future and requires data-based real-time control. In order to realize such a control loop for industry, a communication technology is needed that ensures low latencies and very high reliability. For both characteristics, 5G promises high performance.

The ICNAP study "5G for closed loop manufacturing" addresses exactly this issue: what performance does 5G actually achieve in a real production scenario of a control loop? The goal of the study is to develop a reference architecture for a 5G control loop and to validate it with respect to 5G performance (latency, jitter, reliability, etc.). For this purpose, a latency-critical use case will be implemented and tested in the Fraunhofer IPT machine hall with the help of the ICNAP partners. The machine hall has a fully functional, private 5G indoor network and provides access to an institute-owned cloud infrastructure.

For more information about ICNAP, simply visit our website: https://www.vernetzte-adaptive-produktion.de/en.html