The German Industrie 4.0 high-tech strategy started in 2011 to promote the next industrial revolution – the digitization and interconnection of machines, processes and workers in the industrial automation sector. Today, similar initiatives exist in a number of industrialized countries on an international level. The goal is to create smart factories where cyber-physical systems connect the real and virtual world. Smart machinery will communicate and collaborate in real-time over the Internet of Things (IoT) and enable intelligent human-machine interaction as well as a fully flexible and a highly efficient production.
The trend of digitization requires both companies and academia to innovate at a fast pace and to establish new platforms and standards which will also largely impact related industrial sectors such as logistics, construction, agriculture or professional entertainment.
In order to realize the digital factory and smart industries of the future, the integration of information and communication technologies (ICT) plays a pivotal role. One key component will be a new generation of wireless technologies and protocols – a research area where Fraunhofer HHI has leading expertise.
Industrial wireless technologies have to be enhanced to meet the latency and reliability requirements as well as safety and security standards that exist in automation and control systems, be it robotic networks and discrete manufacturing or process automation. The technologies will particularly benefit from the advancements of the 5th generation of mobile networks (5G). In this context, Fraunhofer HHI provides the following solutions:
- Channel modeling for different environments in wireless industrial automation
- Concepts and algorithms for ultra-reliable and low-latency communication (URRLC) & prototyping of real-time capable software-definable radios
- Application-driven cross-layer optimization of communication layers
- Enhanced Multi-RAT architectures
- Intelligent localization, networking and self-optimization over modular wireless infrastructures
- Energy-efficient data transmission for wireless machine-type communications
- Data analytics, machine learning and prediction in industrial wireless sensor and actuator networks
- Network planning and optimization for digital factories
Related topics
Low Latency
Low-latency transmission over the wireless communication links is a major requirement to enable emerging use cases and future applications.
Reliable Communications
A key component for the deployment of wireless communication in critical systems is ultra-high reliability.