# An Experimental Framework for 5G Wireless System Integration into Industry 4.0 Applications
## 3 Experimental Framework for 5G Integration
### Industrial Research Lab Facilities  
Ideally, all steps in the proposed operational flow should take place at the operational factory. However, this is not always a possibility as one may need to interrupt the manufacturing process for experimentation, which might have a negative impact on the productivity. In some cases, factories might even not have a 5G network deployed at the time when they begin to get interested in the potentials of 5G and how it could be applied for their manufacturing use cases. Therefore, having an industrial research lab with 5G capabilities where STEP 3 and beyond of our proposed flow could be executed is of paramount importance. In some specific cases, even STEPS 1 and 2 could take place in the lab, as sometimes it might be possible that representatives from the factory will visit the lab, tell about their digitalization plans and bring some of the pieces of their manufacturing system that they would like to integrate with 5G, e.g., robotic arms, programmable logical controllers (PLCs), AMRs, sensors and actuators, etc. In those cases where 5G is already available in the factory, the practical 5G integration can take place at either place. For example, for the practical work done in STEP 4, initial efforts can be done at the research lab and, once the system is tested to be stable, the integrated version can be deployed in the factory. This will reduce significantly the impact on the manufacturing process as there would be no need for the factory to interrupt the production for experimentation. The industrial research lab used in connection with the proposed framework is the \"Aalborg University 5G Smart Production Lab\", which is a small-scale industrial factory environment composed of two halls, equipped with a wide range of operational industrial-grade manufacturing and production equipment including production lines, welding machines, robotic arms, etc. The key aspect of this research lab is that it is further equipped with a selection of the most advanced wireless technologies from multiple operators and vendors, which are fully available for our integration and testing efforts. Overview pictures of the two industrial halls of the research lab and the different wireless network deployments are shown in Figure 2.  
In particular, the industrial research lab is equipped with the following state of the art wireless research networks:  
* \(1\times\) 5G NR private network (5G pNR), 3 cells. * \(1\times\) 5G NR dedicated operator network slice (5G dNR), 3 cells. * \(2\times\) 4G LTE private networks (4G pLTE), 3 cells each. * \(1\times\) 4G LTE dedicated operator network slice (4G dLTE), 3 cells. * \(2\times\) Wi-Fi 6 networks, 3 cells each. * \(1\times\) industrial wireless LAN network (IWLAN), 3 cells. * \(1\times\) LoRaWAN network, 1 gateway. * \(1\times\) ultra-wideband radio positioning system (UWB), 16 anchors. Having such a lab with such a selection of industrial equipment and wireless networks is an advantage for us when implementing the integration framework, as it offers a high degree of flexibility and possibilities with respect to choosing where a given step of the operational framework flow should take place. Specifically in STEPS 5, the lab offers a controlled test environment that allows to follow the guidelines from [12] for performance testing of 14.0 use cases over 5G in real-world conditions. Further, the performance achieved over 5G could be benchmarked with that achieved over 4G or Wi-Fi, for example, providing additional input into the suitability of the different wireless technologies for operating a given use case. Similarly for STEP 6, the lab network controlled environments will  
Figure 2: Overview of the Aalborg University 5G Smart Production Lab, including details on the two industrial halls and the different operational wireless network deployments. facilitate performing some optimizations before moving the use case to production in the factory.