The digitalization of manufacturing offers companies many advantages, including more flexibility in production combined with greater resilience to disruptions. "To remain competitive, companies need an adaptable manufacturing environment. This is the only way they can manufacture customized products efficiently and react quickly to disruptions such as supply chain bottlenecks," says Jan Mertes, research associate at the Chair of Production Engineering and Industrial Organization at the Rhineland-Palatinate University of Technology Kaiserslautern-Landau (RPTU). Manufacturing can achieve this level of performance through a high degree of interconnectivity between the various machines and devices. Networking enables new, intelligent solutions for production control, planning and system interaction.

Jan Mertes, research assistant at the Chair of Production Engineering and Industrial Organization at RPTU.

© RPTU/Koziel

Existing 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, i.e. the time it takes for signals to travel from the transmitter to the receiver," says Daniel Lindenschmitt, research associate at the Department of Radio Communication and Navigation, who is researching 6G concepts together with Mertes. "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 work is concerned with what is known as 'ultra-reliable and low-latency communication'. This vision should finally become reality with the 6G mobile communications standard."

The idea: a grid-in-grid system

The two researchers use wireless networks-in-networks (NiN) for their concept. The idea behind this is that specialized architectures dock onto the overall 6G architecture, which are tailored to the needs of industrial applications - a segmented approach, so to speak. Lindenschmitt and Mertes are combining their basic research into NiN, also known as underlay networks, with the development of a demonstrator: this is a CNC milling machine that is controlled in a closed control loop - a classic and highly complex use case. "Until now, the hardware of control components has been connected to production machines and systems by cable. Our concept now enables the virtualization of the milling machine with the required low latency and reliability of signal transmission."

At the Hannover Messe, the researchers will illustrate the different properties of networks using a simple control technology example: an inverted pendulum that is mounted in an oscillating position. In order for it to remain in an upright position, reliable and extremely fast signal transmission is required.

Sub-project in the "Open6GHub"

The project is part of the "Open6GHub", a project funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). In addition to RPTU (Rheinland-Pfälzische Technische Universität Kaiserslautern-Landau) and the DFKI (German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence), other universities and research institutes are also involved in the Open6GHub.