Introduction of a 5G-Enabled Architecture for the Realization of Industry 4.0 Use Cases

The increasing demand for highly customized products, as well as flexible production lines, can be seen as trigger for the “fourth industrial revolution”, referred to as “Industry 4.0”. Current systems usually rely on wire-line technologies to connect sensors and actuators, but new use cases such as moving robots or drones demand a higher flexibility on communication services. Wireless technologies, especially 5th generation wireless communication systems (5G) are best suited to address these new requirements. Furthermore, this facilitates the renewal of brownfield deployments to enable a smooth migration to Industry 4.0. This paper presents results from the Tactile Internet 4.0 (TACNET 4.0) project and introduces a tailored architecture that is focused on the communication needs given by representative Industry 4.0 use cases while ensuring parallel compliance to latest developments in relevant standardization.