Demonstrating the Impact of LTE Communication Latency for Industrial Applications This paper assesses the performance of a private LTE wireless network in an industrial automation setup. Our goal is to study the impact of communication latency in a robot arm position control application when the position feedback signal is transmitted via a commercial LTE wireless link. An Ethernet link scenario is considered as our benchmark. We show that even under very specific conditions (no network load, high signal power), the wireless link cannot achieve a satisfactory performance. The proposed demonstration provides a simple visualization of how LTE network latency disturbs the robot behavior, leading to undesired overshoots, oscillations and even stopping its movements. These results demonstrate that even a private LTE network is still incapable of providing the low latency required by industry automation applications, which shall be incorporated in the upcoming 5G wireless systems.

Utilizing 5G in Industrial Robotic Applications Sensorbased realtime control is being used in robotics for different purposes. The trend is to develop intelligent robots that can understand and react on environmental situations. This leads to the integration of more complex algorithms and involving multiple sensors and mobile assets for a more flexible and intelligent motion control. The requirement on computing power becomes often higher than it could be performed on the robot controller itself. Using an external computer introduces, nowadays, significant communication delays that make realtime control difficult or even impossible. Furthermore, to integrate mobile assets in a motion control scenario wired communication cannot be employed. A 5G network  local factory cloud may bridge this gap. In this paper we describe why 5G technology can make a significant contribution to enable new types of industrial robotics applications. Moreover, we present various use cases and discuss simulation results of a 5Gbased robotics application in an industrial environment.