Manufacturing Magazine September 2020 | Page 65

augmented reality . But instructions streamed over 4G networks can be unreliable due to bandwidth constraints and fail to deliver the required level of quality without stuttering . 5G promises to not only stream high-quality instructions on the shop floor , but also stutterfree augmented reality that can help guide people , step by step , through each individual motion they need to make .
3 . Perceptive AI eyes on the factory floor – Cameras are already common in modern factories to monitor processes and security . However , their issue is limited to focused applications and regularly requires workers to monitor video feeds . 5G will allow the streaming of data in real time to the cloud and the use of live video analytics . For example , if a security camera observes a disturbance , it can identify if there is immediate threat or danger and dispatch a drone or alter a worker to investigate .
4 . High speed decisioning – The best-run factories rely on vast data pools to make decisions , with inevitable delays as data is collected , cleaned and analysed . 5G accelerates the decision-cycle time and allows large amounts of data to be ingested , processed and actioned in near real time . In several heavy industries , manufacturers have been able to sell excess energy back to the grid when machines aren ’ t running and prices are favourable .
5 . Shop floor IoT – The addition of sensors to multiple machines means factories are creating more data than ever before . Transmission through wired networks is expensive to scale and WiFi networks can quickly get congested . 5G has the ability to support high connection density with tens of thousands of endpoints , thereby truly enabling the use of industrial data at scale .
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