The digitisation of manufacturing offers companies many benefits, such as greater flexibility in production and resilience in case of downtime. The future 6G mobile communication standard should finally enable this potential for market-oriented communication solutions. At the University of Kaiserslautern-Landau, a team of researchers is working on concepts for wireless interconnectivity via dedicated "sub-networks". Extensive testing is being carried out with a CNC milling machine.
"Modern companies need an adaptable production system to stay competitive. This is the only way they can efficiently create customised products. And can react quickly to disruptions such as bottlenecks in the supply chain." So says Jan Mertes, research associate at the Institute for Manufacturing Technology and Production Systems. Manufacturing can achieve this level of performance through digitisation and a high degree of interconnectivity between different machines and devices. This interconnectivity enables new, intelligent solutions for production control, planning and system interaction.
Ultra-reliable communication with low latency
Current, wireless solutions do not meet these requirements or are not compatible with other communication architectures due to their proprietary design. "The control of production machines places extremely high demands on latency in particular. That is, the time it takes signals to travel from the transmitter to the receiver," says Daniel Lindenschmitt, research associate in the Wireless Communications and Navigation Department. Together with Mertes, he is researching 6G concepts. "It's not just about how long the delay is. The arrival time of the signal must also be predictable and therefore reliable. In other words, our research is concerned with what is known as 'ultra-reliable communication with low latency'. This vision should eventually become a reality with the 6G mobile phone standard."
6G
The two researchers use wireless networks-in-networks (NiN) for their concept. This is a specialised architecture that meets the various requirements of different industrial applications by integrating sub-networks into a holistic 6G architecture.
Lindenschmitt and Mertes combine their results on NiN, also known as underlay networks, in a demonstrator. "We developed a CNC milling machine controlled by a closed-loop control loop - a very complex application. Until now, the hardware of control components was connected to production machines and systems via wires. Our concept now enables the virtualisation of control components of the milling machine thanks to low latency communication and signal transmission reliability."
Demonstrator
At Hannover Messe, the two researchers presented a simple example to illustrate the influence of different properties of networks on control technologies. They showed an inverted pendulum whose controls are integrated into a NiN system. To stay upright, it requires reliable and extremely fast signal transmission. "This allows interested parties to directly experience the advantages of NiN systems and what we want to achieve with our 6G research," summarises Lindenschmitt.
Subproject in the "Open6GHub
The project is part of the "Open6GHub". This is a project funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). Professor Dr.-Ing. Hans D. Schotten, head of the Institute for Wireless Communication and Navigation at the University Kaiserslautern-Landau and head of the Intelligent Networks research department at the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), is coordinating the project. The Institute for Production Technology and Production Systems at Kaiserslautern-Landau University, led by Professor Dr.-Ing. Jan C. Aurich, is also contributing its expertise. Besides RPTU and DFKI, other universities and research institutes are also involved in the Open6GHub project.
6G infrastructure
Within this research alliance, the partners aim to contribute to the development of an overall 6G architecture and also launch end-to-end solutions in the following areas: Extended network topologies with highly agile so-called organic networks, security and resilience, Thz and photonic transmission methods, integration of sensor functionalities into the networks and their intelligent use and further processing and application-specific radio protocols.
Collaboration
The researchers are open to dialogue and collaboration: "We are looking for early and interactive dialogue with the public and are equally willing to collaborate with industry and users," says Schotten. "To achieve this, we will install open laboratories and open experimental fields. Last but not least, we want to promote an open innovation system by involving SMEs and start-ups and their results."
Opening photo: Image by Gerd Altmann via Pixabay
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