Demo: a realistic use-case for wireless industrial automation and control

Abstract

This demo showcases a typical industrial automation scenario of a robot picking and placing work pieces from a moving conveyor belt. It involves sensory data inputs to a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC), and instructions from the PLC to a robot for the pick and place operation. The scenario requires communication from sensors to the PLC and from the PLC to a robot with ultra-low latency and extremely high reliability. While none of today’s wireless standards is capable of satisfying these stringent communication demands, our early prototype implementation of some of the design features of the future 5G standard enables industrial control using wireless communication. Our demo will show the live performance characteristics of the 5G design features for low latency and high reliability.