The 5G audit offers manufacturing companies the opportunity to find out what positive effects 5G can have on existing processes. (Picture: Fraunhofer IPT)

What potential does 5G wireless technology hold for the industry? And how can digitization in production succeed? These are the questions many manufacturing companies ask themselves when it comes to successfully implementing 5G in production. With a 5G audit, the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT in Aachen is now offering manufacturing companies the opportunity to explore their own potential for the industrial use of the new mobile phone technology and to find out what positive effects 5G can have on existing processes.

The Fraunhofer IPT operates the 5G-Industry Campus Europe together with project partners from the fields of production technology and IT and has been involved in various research projects on the industrial application of the new mobile radio standard for several years. In order to make the technological developments and experiences more easily accessible to interested companies, the institute now offers a modular 5G audit. The experts of the Fraunhofer IPT thus enable the audited companies to identify their own 5G fields of application, to assess the costs and benefits of 5G integration and to develop concrete implementation strategies. The Aachen researchers can also support the later implementation of their own 5G implementations with practical application knowledge.

“The results of each 5G audit are individual recommendations for action for the individual situation on site in the companies”
Sven Jung, technical director of 5G-Industry

Discover the benefits of 5G for production at 5G-Industry Campus Europe

In highly flexible and networked manufacturing systems, all processes and distributed systems must communicate reliably in real time. Only then can manufacturing companies monitor and control their production to a high degree in order to react dynamically to the smallest changes in the production process. With high data rates of up to ten gigabits per second and low latencies below one millisecond, 5G offers the best conditions for such state-of-the-art manufacturing systems.

With the 5G-Industry Campus Europe, Europe’s largest industrial 5G research infrastructure went online in May 2020. Here, the Fraunhofer IPT and its research partners in Aachen are researching and testing the first industrial 5G applications. In a total of seven subprojects, different application scenarios are being investigated, ranging from 5G sensor technology for monitoring and controlling highly complex manufacturing processes, mobile robotics and logistics, to cross-location production chains. In addition, the Aachen scientists are testing the use of modern edge-cloud systems for rapid data processing in order to exploit the potential of 5G in networked, adaptive production.

With the 5G audit, the partners pass on their 5G knowledge in the industrial environment to other companies and offer support in implementing their own 5G environment. Interested companies and research partners who would like to find out more can find further information and contact persons here.