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5G Wireless Systems for Industry 4.0

A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073). This special issue belongs to the section "A1: Smart Grids and Microgrids".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 October 2021) | Viewed by 21093

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Wireless Communication Networks, Department of Electronic Systems, Aalborg University, 9220 Aalborg Øst, Denmark
Interests: 5G; wireless communications; wireless systems; industrial IoT
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

As the fourth industrial revolution, or Industry 4.0 (I4.0), advances, the integration of advanced wireless technologies such as 5G with different cyberphysical systems (CPS), industrial Internet-of-Things (IIoT) technologies, and cloud computing plays a pivotal role in the path towards successfully achieving the implementation of the most advanced and challenging industrial production and manufacturing-related concepts.

Since I4.0 operational application scenarios can be very diverse (factory production halls, mines, power plants, warehouses, distribution networks, etc.), having each of them unique characteristics in terms of topography, topology, communication needs or contextual targets, the variety of industrial use cases with wireless potential is almost endless. Moreover, these use cases can be very different from each other in terms of communication requirements. For example, the control of PLCs in a production line via wireless manufacturing execution systems in a factory, or the massive deployment of sensors for predictive maintenance within an urban water distribution network, can operate reliably with a few bytes of data exchanged in intervals in the order of seconds or minutes. Differently, the wireless control of autonomous trucks in an open pit mine, or the control of mobile robots in a factory, would typically require more I/O data reported and exchanged in shorter intervals close to the ms level to ensure a high reliability.

This variety of very different industrial use cases and application scenarios has led to multiple dedicated wireless solution possibilities considering 5G, B5G, or other advanced wireless communication technologies, combined with diverse CPS and IIoT systems. These integrated solutions may aim not only at enabling flexibility by providing wireless control of an industrial system, but also at collecting and processing data in the cloud for automation, monitoring or process optimization via digital twins, for example.

This Special Issue is dedicated to advanced 5G wireless systems in Industry 4.0 scenarios. Consequently, the topics of interest include but are not limited to:

  • 5G architectures targeting operational industrial scenarios;
  • 5G deployments and field trials in operational industrial scenarios;
  • Industrial scenarios and applications requiring 5G connectivity;
  • Advanced integrated industrial wireless control and monitoring systems;
  • Performance evaluation, simulations, and measurements of wireless IIoT systems;
  • IIoT wireless control and monitoring protocol design;
  • Cloud-based IIoT solutions.

Dr. Ignacio Rodríguez Larrad
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Energies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Industry 4.0
  • wireless systems
  • 5G
  • industrial IoT
  • cyberphysical systems
  • cloud computing
  • system integration
  • industrial automation
  • autonomous robots
  • smart manufacturing
  • digital twins

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

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23 pages, 27319 KiB  
Article
An Experimental Framework for 5G Wireless System Integration into Industry 4.0 Applications
by Ignacio Rodriguez, Rasmus Suhr Mogensen, Andreas Fink, Taus Raunholt, Søren Markussen, Per Hartmann Christensen, Gilberto Berardinelli, Preben Mogensen, Casper Schou and Ole Madsen
Energies 2021, 14(15), 4444; https://doi.org/10.3390/en14154444 - 23 Jul 2021
Cited by 28 | Viewed by 3920
Abstract
The fourth industrial revolution, or Industry 4.0 (I4.0), makes use of wireless technologies together with other industrial Internet-of-Things (IIoT) technologies, cyber–physical systems (CPS), and edge computing to enable the optimization and the faster re-configuration of industrial production processes. As I4.0 deployments are ramping [...] Read more.
The fourth industrial revolution, or Industry 4.0 (I4.0), makes use of wireless technologies together with other industrial Internet-of-Things (IIoT) technologies, cyber–physical systems (CPS), and edge computing to enable the optimization and the faster re-configuration of industrial production processes. As I4.0 deployments are ramping up, the practical integration of 5G wireless systems with existing industrial applications is being explored in both Industry and Academia, in order to find optimized strategies and to develop guidelines oriented towards ensuring the success of the industrial wireless digitalization process. This paper explores the challenges arisen from such integration between industrial systems and 5G wireless, and presents a framework applicable to achieve a structured and successful integration. The paper aims at describing the different aspects of the framework such as the application operational flow and its associated tools, developed based on analytical and experimental applied research methodologies. The applicability of the framework is illustrated by addressing the integration of 5G technology into a specific industrial use case: the control of autonomous mobile robots. The results indicate that 5G technology can be used for reliable fleet management control of autonomous mobile robots in industrial scenarios, and that 5G can support the migration of the on-board path planning intelligence to the edge-cloud. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue 5G Wireless Systems for Industry 4.0)
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19 pages, 5907 KiB  
Article
Optimization of 5G Networks for Smart Logistics
by Emil Jatib Khatib and Raquel Barco
Energies 2021, 14(6), 1758; https://doi.org/10.3390/en14061758 - 22 Mar 2021
Cited by 40 | Viewed by 6863
Abstract
Industry 4.0 is generalizing the use of wireless connectivity in manufacturing and logistics. Specifically, in Smart Logistics, novel Industry 4.0 technologies are used to enable agile supply chains, with reduced management, energy and storage costs. Cellular networks allow connectivity throughout all the scenarios [...] Read more.
Industry 4.0 is generalizing the use of wireless connectivity in manufacturing and logistics. Specifically, in Smart Logistics, novel Industry 4.0 technologies are used to enable agile supply chains, with reduced management, energy and storage costs. Cellular networks allow connectivity throughout all the scenarios where logistics processes take place, each having their own challenges. This paper explores such scenarios and challenges, and proposes 5G technology as a global unified connectivity solution. Moreover, this paper proposes a system for exploiting the application-specific optimization capabilities of 5G networks to better cater for the needs of Smart Logistics. An application traffic modeling process is proposed, along with a proactive approach to network optimization that can improve the Quality of Service and reduce connectivity costs. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue 5G Wireless Systems for Industry 4.0)
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11 pages, 847 KiB  
Article
Hybrid AF/DF Cooperative Relaying Technique with Phase Steering for Industrial IoT Networks
by Sangku Lee, Janghyuk Youn and Bang Chul Jung
Energies 2021, 14(4), 937; https://doi.org/10.3390/en14040937 - 10 Feb 2021
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 1737
Abstract
For the next generation of manufacturing, the industrial internet of things (IoT) has been considered as a key technology that enables smart factories, in which sensors transfer measured data, actuators are controlled, and systems are connected wirelessly. In particular, the wireless sensor network [...] Read more.
For the next generation of manufacturing, the industrial internet of things (IoT) has been considered as a key technology that enables smart factories, in which sensors transfer measured data, actuators are controlled, and systems are connected wirelessly. In particular, the wireless sensor network (WSN) needs to operate with low cost, low power (energy), and narrow spectrum, which are the most technical challenges for industrial IoT networks. In general, a relay-assisted communication network has been known to overcome scarce energy problems, and a spectrum-sharing technique has been considered as a promising technique for the radio spectrum shortage problem. In this paper, we propose a phase steering based hybrid cooperative relaying (PSHCR) technique for the generic relay-assisted spectrum-shared WSN, which consists of a secondary transmitter, multiple secondary relays (SRs), a secondary access point, and multiple primary access points. Basically, SRs in the proposed PSHCR technique operate with decode-and-forward (DF) relaying protocol, but it does not abandon the SRs that failed in decoding at the first hop. Instead, the SRs operate with amplify-and-forward (AF) protocol when they failed in decoding at the first hop. Furthermore, the SRs (regardless of operating with AF or DF protocol) that satisfy interference constraints to the primary network are allowed to transmit a signal to the secondary access point at the second hop. Note that phase distortion is compensated through phase steering operation at each relay node before second-hop transmission, and thus all relay nodes can operate in a fully distributed manner. Finally, we validate that the proposed PSHCR technique significantly outperforms the existing best single relay selection (BSR) technique and cooperative phase steering (CPS) technique in terms of outage performance via extensive computer simulations. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue 5G Wireless Systems for Industry 4.0)
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18 pages, 621 KiB  
Article
Energy-Efficient Device Discovery Mechanism for Device-to-Device Communications in 5G Networks
by Mingfu Li and Hsin-Ling Tsai
Energies 2021, 14(2), 270; https://doi.org/10.3390/en14020270 - 6 Jan 2021
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2581
Abstract
The conventional direct device discovery scheme which uses the random access protocol and encounters contentions or collisions is highly energy and time-consuming. To reduce the energy consumption of user equipments (UEs), this work proposes a two-phase hybrid device discovery mechanism for device-to-device (D2D) [...] Read more.
The conventional direct device discovery scheme which uses the random access protocol and encounters contentions or collisions is highly energy and time-consuming. To reduce the energy consumption of user equipments (UEs), this work proposes a two-phase hybrid device discovery mechanism for device-to-device (D2D) communications. In the first phase, the evolved packet core (EPC) or base station (BS) uses the location information of UEs to judge whether two UEs are able to establish a D2D link. In the second phase, UEs use Wi-Fi Direct to discover their target UEs. The BS directly assigns UEs’ states and allocates appropriate Wi-Fi channels to UEs. UEs no longer have to search or listen to all channels, thus reducing the discovery delay. The proposed mechanism saves cellular spectrum resources because it uses unlicensed bands for D2D discovery and communications. The performance of the proposed hybrid D2D discovery mechanism is also theoretically analyzed in this paper. Evaluation results show that the proposed D2D discovery mechanism has better performance in terms of energy consumption, discovery delay and discovery success rate, compared with the conventional direct D2D discovery scheme, especially in the network scenarios with smaller cells such as 5G networks. Additionally, the analytic results coincide with simulation results, demonstrating that our theoretic analysis is accurate. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue 5G Wireless Systems for Industry 4.0)
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Review

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15 pages, 1315 KiB  
Review
Time-Sensitive Networking Technologies for Industrial Automation in Wireless Communication Systems
by Yoohwa Kang, Sunwoo Lee, Songi Gwak, Taekyeong Kim and Donghyeok An
Energies 2021, 14(15), 4497; https://doi.org/10.3390/en14154497 - 26 Jul 2021
Cited by 13 | Viewed by 4531
Abstract
The fourth industrial revolution is accelerating industrial automation. In industrial networks, manufacturing processes require hard real-time communication where the latency is less than 1ms. Time-sensitive networking (TSN) technology over Ethernet already supports deterministic delivery for real-time communication. However, TSN technologies over wireless networks [...] Read more.
The fourth industrial revolution is accelerating industrial automation. In industrial networks, manufacturing processes require hard real-time communication where the latency is less than 1ms. Time-sensitive networking (TSN) technology over Ethernet already supports deterministic delivery for real-time communication. However, TSN technologies over wireless networks are currently in their initial development stage. Therefore, this study presents an overview of TSN research trends in wireless communications. This paper focuses on 5G networks and IEEE 802.11. We summarize standardization trends for TSN in 5G networks and introduce the TSN technologies for 802.11-based WLAN. Then, we introduce the integration scenario of 5GS with WLAN. This study provides insights into wireless communication technologies for wireless TSN. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue 5G Wireless Systems for Industry 4.0)
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