Prof. Dr.-Ing. Hans Schotten (DFKI), coordinator of Tacnet 4.0: "Innovative 5G technologies can support demanding and previously unrealizable scenarios in process and production automation."

© DFKI

The future 5G network should allow very high data rates and be a so-called "tactile internet" - i.e. have response times that are no longer perceptible to humans at less than one millisecond. The problem is that the maximum reliability and real-time communication required for Industry 4.0 is not yet supported end-to-end in the first phase. The 'Tacnet 4.0' project within the BMBF funding program '5G: Tactile Internet' is therefore intended to develop the concepts and algorithms required for this and thus create the prerequisites for many Industry 4.0 applications, such as direct interaction between man and machine or wireless process control.

Minimum latency as a basis

One of the most important aspects of Tacnet 4.0 is the local and cross-location secure transmission of data with minimal delay. "Such a scenario enables, for example, the remote control of mobile machines or robots that are used in hazardous working environments or require operation by locally unavailable specialist personnel. The project is also investigating new approaches such as big data analytics, edge cloud-supported real-time control and remote services," explains Prof. Dr.-Ing. Hans Schotten, Head of the Intelligent Networks research department at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) in Kaiserslautern and coordinator of Tacnet 4.0. Dr. Peter Rost, Nokia Bell Labs, adds: "Nobody develops the application scenarios of tomorrow alone. There needs to be cross-industry collaboration. We are delighted that we can drive forward the development of the tactile Internet together with our partners in Tacnet 4.0."

According to DFKI, the particular challenge is to integrate future 5G networks and other common and innovative industrial communication networks in order to support a wide range of industrial applications, such as the integration of fieldbus systems. The project relies on open interfaces so that the network functions can be extended by apps, for example. Furthermore, for the first time, an attempt is being made to use the mobile network for wide-area coverage instead of only local wireless sensor networks or WLAN, as was previously the case.

Fourteen partners - three-year term

In addition to DFKI and Nokia Bell Labs as overall coordinators, the Tacnet consortium includes companies and organizations: ABB Research Center, Ascora GmbH, Robert Bosch GmbH, Commsolid GmbH, Götting KG, Institute for Industrial Information Technology (inIT) at OWL University, Mecsware GmbH, NXP Semiconductors Germany GmbH, Otaris Interactive Services GmbH, Dresden University of Technology with the Vodafone Chair for Mobile Communications Systems and the Deutsche Telekom Chair for Communication Networks, the University of Bremen. The associated and cooperating partners Basf, Busch-Jaeger, Hirschmann Automation and Control GmbH, Innoroute GmbH, Phoenix Contact Electronics GmbH, Vodafone Germany, it's OWL Spitzencluster, owl Maschinenbau e.V. and the VDMA are also involved.

The project is managed by DFKI (Prof. Dr.-Ing. Hans D. Schotten) and Nokia Bell Labs (Dr. Peter Rost). The project, which is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) with around 6.3 million euros, was officially launched in April 2017 and will run for a total of three years.

A consortium meeting on the first project milestone took place in Munich on November 30, 2017. This completed the analysis of the use cases and industry requirements and incorporated them into the 3GPP standardization, so that the actual work in the technical working groups can now begin to prepare the demonstrators.