# An Experimental Framework for 5G Wireless System Integration into Industry 4.0 Applications
## 5 Considerations for Future Framework Versions  
It has been demonstrated that applying the experimental framework leads to successful integration of 5G into industrial applications. In its current shape, the considered operational flow, prototyping tools and research lab environments, provides enough capabilities for compatibility with 5G Rel 15. However, for future 5G releases, such as those introducing URLLC features and close-to-ms control-loop supports [45], the hardware and software of the prototypes (especially the WMAGW) would need to be adjusted in order to improve, mainly, the processing delays. To achieve this, the HW prototypes will be evolved from the current central processing unit (CPU)-based designs to field-programmable gate array (FPGA) architectures to ensure an optimized processing performance. Using FPGA-based HW elements will require the development of new dedicated SW, as not all the functionalities of the CPU-based SW will be compatible with the new architecture. Such upgrade to high-end performance devices will also ensure that our future HW prototypes will be capable of supporting the integration with time-sensitive networks (TSN) aimed at the control of real-time streams with deterministic delay support [46]. The research lab would also need to be upgraded, in order to include all those 5G network release upgrades. In particular for the lab, 5G base stations with mm-wave FR2 support is seen as an essential evolution step. Under the current 5G lab deployments, operating in sub-6 GHz FR1 spectrum, available capacity might be limited for certain I4.0 applications, especially those demanding high uplink throughput for many devices, e.g., the industrial visual quality inspection based on computer vision [47]. In terms of operational flow, no updates are foreseen in the near future. The operational integration steps are described in a detailed, flexible and technology-unbiased style, which ensures the compatibility with different technologies, industrial use cases, and other reference frameworks. Security has not been explicitly addressed in our experimental framework, as our main focus is on the 5G integration and connectivity aspects, while security is mainly addressed at higher levels [48]. 5G security in I4.0 application scenarios will depend on various aspects such as the specific flavor of 5G network deployment. A fully private 5G network deployment will have the security advantage of being isolated from the exterior (although  
Figure 12: Results from the MEC-planner performance for the cabled reference case and the different 5G network configurations explored in the emulation tests: (a) navigation performance, and (b) docking performance. Internet access might exist via a secure firewall), while other 5G deployments for industrial use, such as dedicated network slices, will rely on several external network elements, and as such extra security measures need to be taken [48]. 5G radio communication makes use of encryption and is secure by design, and thus the main security challenges arise mainly from the networking perspective of the integrated end-to-end 5G-operational technology networks [49]. In this respect, our WMAGW will play a role and, thus, should be a secure interface at a similar level of current critical industrial networking infrastructure such as router or switches. Therefore, control access through physical and remote-logical interfaces should be protected by strong credentials. In terms of operation, our WMAGW should be already capable of transmitting ethernet traffic protected by high-layer cryptographic protocols such as DTLS over 5G. However, future developments in terms of industrial networking will be followed in order to ensure that our device continues to perform reliably when operating new secure ethernet protocols such as OPC-UA.