TACNET 4.0

Highly reliable and real-time 5G networking for Industry 4.0 - The tactile Internet for production, robotics and digitization of industry

Teilprojekt: Relevance-based signal processing for small cell networks with edge cloud RAN

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Motivation

In order to survive in international competition in the long term, German industry must consistently digitalize processes. In the vision of an "Industry 4.0", people, robots and machines cooperate closely with each other. This requires the consistent networking of all industrial actors and systems. Current industrial communication networks do not yet guarantee this. The prerequisite for this will only be created by the new, 5th generation of mobile communications (5G), whose potential for Industry 4.0 is to be developed in this project.

Goals and Procedure

The aim of the TACNET 4.0 project entitled "Highly Reliable and Real-Time 5G Networking for Industry 4.0" is to develop a uniform industrial 5G communication system that makes advanced communication solutions usable for the Industry 4.0 use case. The aim is to integrate fifth generation mobile radio networks consistently into industrial communication networks. 

For this purpose, different research questions have to be solved, such as: How can countless machines, robots and other IT systems communicate wirelessly in limited space in a fail-safe manner, at high data rates and without delay? How can existing systems be migrated? An important aspect is the management of the network. This serves, among other things, to initiate and maintain many simultaneous wireless connections. It must be able to react quickly to changes and automatically carry out complex configurations of the radio access nodes in the background. The project also investigates methods of outsourcing control and management functions to the cloud. Automation systems communicate with the cloud in real-time. In this way, for example, maintenance processes of machines and plants can be designed more demand-oriented and foresighted.

Innovations and Perspectives

TACNET 4.0 creates an industrial communication infrastructure that encompasses the entire communication network inside and outside a factory. Production can be flexibly controlled and maintained remotely, taking particularly high safety requirements into account. With the concept created in TACNET 4.0, the manufacturing industry will be able to use future 5G technologies more easily and profitably at reasonable cost. The economic exploitation takes place in process and manufacturing automation. Through the participation of partners in practice, their requirements are comprehensively taken into account.

Research contribution of the University of Bremen

Within TACNET 4.0 the University of Bremen focuses on the topic of relevance-based signal processing in small cell networks. Completely new concepts of signal processing in an industrial communication network and a high degree of availability are made possible by building a dense network of access nodes (small cells). Communication users can communicate simultaneously with several of the small cells (multi-connectivity) and use different radio access technologies (Multi-RAT). Joint processing of the received signals of several small cells in a wired radio access network (RAN) enables so-called centralization gains in combination with edge computing or an edge cloud. These centralization gains can be exploited for various performance improvements such as higher reliability, complexity savings or lower latencies. For example, algorithms of lower complexity can be used for the same level of reliability or partial processing steps of the RAN can be simplified to reduce overall latency. On the other hand, an increase in resilience through multi-connectivity / multi-RAT can also be realized. A multitude of boundary conditions determine the achievable gains of this cooperative communication. The signal processing concept for such a distributed Radio Access Network (RAN) must offer a high degree of flexibility to allow for adaptations to limited fronthaul bandwidth, available computing capacities, power requirements/limitations and a dynamically changing radio situation. Therefore, the University of Bremen is pursuing two main scientific approaches, which in combination result in relevance-based signal processing. The goal of these approaches is to research efficient, flexible and adaptable signal processing in small cell networks with edge cloud.

Further Information

Projektwebseite     www.tacnet40.de 
Siehe auch BMBF   http://www.forschung-it-sicherheit-kommunikationssysteme.de/projekte/tacnet

Details

Duration: 04/2017 - 03/2021
Funding:Federal Ministry of Education and Research
Research Focus: Cooperative Communication
Communications - special topics
Machine Learning for Communications
Precursor:METIS
iJOIN
Characteristic Information Processing on the Physical Layer for Massive Communications (CIPMaC)

Publications

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Involved Staff

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