5G for Connected Industries (5G CONNI)

The introduction of the fifth generation of mobile communication networks (5G) has been transformational. While 5G technologies such as network slicing can accommodate industrial applications in public networks, Private 5G Networks, operating locally and highly optimised towards specific applications, are a disruptive emerging approach. The EU-funded 5G CONNI project aims to provide an integrated end-to-end 5G test and demonstration network for industrial applications. They plan to set up two interconnected industrial trial sites in both Europe and Taiwan, where selected use cases will be realised and integrated into an end-to-end industrial Private 5G Network demonstrator. The project results will be used to shape the requirements for private network operations.

The project will follow an application centric approach for building an international multi-site 5G Smart Factory demonstrator that incorporates one manufacturing facility of Bosch in Germany and the Intelligent Machine Tools Center (IMTC) of ITRI in Taiwan. With this application target, 5G CONNI will address use cases in the area between the ITU-defined edge cases enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) and ultra-reliable low latency communication (URLLC).

A core aspect of 5G CONNI is the newly emerging notion of Private 5G Networks. While 5G technologies such as network slicing may accommodate industrial applications in public networks, the generational leap from 4G to 5G offers the opportunity to not only re-architect the network, but also operator and deployment models. Private 5G Networks, operating locally and highly optimized towards specific applications, are envisioned by the 5G CONNI partners to be an important component in helping both 5G and Industry 4.0 deliver on their promises.

Deliverables from 5G CONNI are available here. Deliverable D4.1: 'Initial specification and implementation of the building blocks' and Deliverable D7.4: 'Final Project Report' are worth a read if this is a topic of interest. One of the videos from the project is embedded below: