First 5G campus networks ready for launch
Siemens and Qualcomm claim to have set up the first private standalone 5G network. Technology group Bosch also wants to set up campus local area networks and has applied for 5G operating licenses for a number of locations.
For the in-house 5G network in its Automotive Showroom and Test Center in Nuremberg, Siemens supplied the end devices and the industrial environment itself while its partner Qualcomm supplied the network and relevant test equipment. According to German business newspaper ‘ Handelsblatt ’, Siemens has already applied for 5G licenses for all six factories in its ‘Digital Industry’ division. The group will make good use of the bandwidth at its Test Center in Nuremberg: New manufacturing options are developed and tested here, as are industrial protocols such as OPC UA and Profinet. The first pilot projects with customers are scheduled for 2020.
Other service providers are also lining up to install industrial campus networks, since the market for these promises to become lucrative. Bosch has also already applied for licenses for local networks, the first of which are planned for its lead plant for Industry 4.0 in Stuttgart-Feuerbach and its research campus in Renningen. Bosch wants to leverage the new wireless technology to make its plants more moveable: For instance, 5G could enable a mobile robot to be controlled in real time using data stored in a local manufacturing cloud. Just a few days after applying for the licenses, Bosch presented a new control technology called ctrlX AUTOMATION , designed specifically for 5G in industry.
At HANNOVER MESSE 2020, the latest developments, products and solutions of the 5G mobile phone generation for industry will be presented in a real 5G testbed in the 5G Arena.
