Industrial companies baulking at the task of moving to 5G should consider smaller steps, according to Peter Gaspar from A¹ Digital, speaking at this month’s Embedded World in Nuremberg.

He said 5G offered a lot for the industrial sector such as massive machine type communications with lots of devices connected and URLLC (ultra-reliable low-latency communications) to allow autonomous vehicles on the factory floor.

However, some of the promised features are not there yet and the disruption that could be caused by switching to 5G is putting many off.

“It is not so easy in industrial IoT to develop a new production line,” said Gaspar. “There is also a shortage of 5G modules. These are not being produced in the quantities needed. This is because there is not the demand because users have complex processes and switching involves long-term planning. They can’t just shut down part of the factory to refurbish it. This is a chicken-and-egg situation that has led to delayed network launches.”

The answer he said was to develop a roadmap that ends up in a full private 5G network but does it through smaller steps, starting with making more use of the existing public 4G and 5G networks for the likes of smart metering and asset tracking.

“You can start to collect use cases,” he said, “so go and use it.”

The second step is to take a slice of a public 5G network, which could be used for applications such as predictive maintenance and video surveillance.

The jump then to a private 5G network is much smaller but this could enable mission-critical applications, internal communications and autonomous vehicles.

“Private 5G is enough for autonomous vehicles to coordinate and communicate with each other,” he said. “The ultimate goal is 5G advanced features such as URLLC, mm-wave and smart PLCs.”

He suggested vendors initially partnering with MNOs and customers to develop realistic use cases. Factories can then include these initial use cases in their long-term planning. MNOs should offer such factories private slices so they can gain experience in IIoT.

“You need to build the knowhow,” said Gaspar. “Private slices can help you gain experience. You don’t need a full private 5G network at the beginning.”

For more about A¹ Digital visit www.a1.digital.