SoftBank Corp, Murata Manufacturing and CC-Link Partner Association recently claimed to have advanced the wireless transformation of industrial infrastructure with their latest offering. The demonstration involved testing time-sensitive networking (TSN) over a private standalone 5G offering.
In a joint statement, SoftBank noted the laboratory-based demonstration achieved highly accurate time synchronisation with an average error of 122ns over a 5G network, well below the 3GPP-defined requirement of 900ns or less.
The Japanese operator added the demo marks the world’s first successful trial of TSN over 5G by a mobile operator. The end-to-end control environment used actual industrial devices and was evaluated under factory-floor assumptions.
Manabu Hamaguchi, global director of CC-Link Partner Association, believes significant added value can be delivered to a wide range of industries, including manufacturing, logistics and agriculture, and “we have high expectations for an early commercial release”.
The three companies also confirmed CC-Link’s IE TSN Class B–compliant industrial devices operated successfully over the 5G network.
In factories and manufacturing environments, highly accurate time synchronisation is vital to ensure multiple devices operate in precisely coordinated timing, the statement explained. Industrial equipment has traditionally relied on wired networks, with the demo representing an important step in enabling wireless control.
Source: Mobile World Live
Image Credit: SoftBank
