Alongside Ethernet TSN, the upcoming 5G mobile communications standard is considered to be one of the cornerstones of Industry 4.0 communication - there is now a broad consensus in the industry. However, according to Thomas Schildknecht, it will be a long time before the new technical possibilities that this opens up are put into practice. In particular, the realization of important 5G services is still pending, with the help of which end users can build individual 'campus networks'. These are

• eMBB (enhanced Mobile Broadband),
• uRLLC (ultra Reliable Low Latency Communication)
• mMTC (massive Machine Type Communications)
• and network slicing.

These services will not be defined until Release 16, which is expected next year. "Only then can the 'baseband' chip manufacturers begin with the final specification of the associated chips; and then it will probably take another two to three years before the first integration-capable modules come onto the market," believes Schildknecht. The consequence: "The first 5G solutions for automation devices will not be available until around 2023 - even if all other requirements are met!"

One stumbling block in the discussions between automation specialists and end customers in factory automation as well as mobile network providers and network equipment suppliers is still the latency time - both in terms of definition and the values achieved to date. For real-time applications such as synchronized drives - for example with Profinet or TSN - the jitter should only be a few microseconds. "With 5G, however, this value is currently a few milliseconds," Schildknecht points out. The situation is similar for transmission times in 5G campus networks: Here, a value of one millisecond is currently being targeted for the transmission of a data packet. The one millisecond is not a guaranteed value, but the development goal in order to be able to use 5G for automation applications. However, the TDD method envisaged for this is counterproductive as a half-duplex method with regard to low latency times: "It was not without reason that the transition from Profibus to Profinet was also made from half to full duplex," emphasizes Schildknecht.

Since September, applications for bandwidth in 10 MHz increments can be submitted to the Federal Network Agency, stating the intended use. Since the beginning of November, the costs for this can also be calculated using a formula. Schildknecht comments: "It should be noted that 'use it or lose it' applies to campus networks. This means that the installation must be completed within one year, otherwise you lose your license. Service offers for telephony and Internet access are not possible in this frequency range. In the meantime, maximum field strength values to be observed at the campus boundaries have also been published."

Speaking of costs: regardless of the high time required for radio certification, approval in the most important industrial markets is expected to cost at least 500,000 euros; and this expense is repeated with each new chip generation. "A sensor manufacturer with a large number of products will therefore hardly upgrade them to 5G, as was or is already the case with Bluetooth," notes Schildknecht, adding: "Although this technology has been known for 20 years, there are hardly any industrial sensors with this wireless technology!"

The new cloud license model

In addition to his current assessment of 5G, Thomas Schildknecht presented a new license model for the company's own 'Device Cloud' at SPS 2019 in Nuremberg. This intelligent link assumes an active connecting function between the sensors or gateways as suppliers of as yet unsorted data volumes and the company cloud as a recipient of already processed data. The Device Cloud is equipped with important functions for this task, including the management of devices, gateways and the eSIM card for global connectivity. The combination of gateway and Device Cloud is a connection with standard interfaces for customers (fieldbus and IO to the field level and API to third-party software or cloud solutions) and enables quick and easy implementation of IoT projects for customers.

Specifically, the license model provides for four levels:

• Level 1 (Operator) is suitable for 'Proof of Concept (PoC)' projects and for users who are satisfied with displaying the results on a dashboard.
• Level 2 (Customer) enables worldwide access to Dataeagle devices, sensors and machines for parameterization, data processing and results visualization. The dashboards and access to them can be created independently.
• Level 3 (Provider) allows the use for own projects and/or to own customers including the allocation of sub-licenses for Level 2 and 1.
• Level 4 (Server/Owner) means a full license with unlimited possibilities.