Titled “Wi-Fi 6/6E for Industrial IoT: Enabling Wi-Fi Determinism in an IoT World,” the white paper delves into the effectiveness of using the latest Wi-Fi standard for new IIoT applications deployed in manufacturing/Industry 4.0 and logistics, including autonomous mobile robots (AMR), automated ground vehicles (AGV), predictive maintenance, and augmented/virtual/mixed reality (AR/VR/MR).
“Wi-Fi has been a key enabler of the global IIoT market, which is on track to have a compound annual growth rate of around 23% between 2017 and 2023. Wi-Fi 6 and 6E are expanding capabilities by providing the multi-Gb/s data rates, additional spectrum, deterministic performance and other advanced capabilities needed to support demanding applications such as Industry 4.0,” explains Tiago Rodrigues, CEO of the Wireless Broadband Alliance.
“As more equipment is monitored, cabling becomes prohibitively expensive,” the paper says. “The industry is moving toward the inclusion of wireless technologies to lower the cost of getting more information about their processes. In a recent case in the oil and gas industry, the move to a wireless installation resulted in a 75% cost reduction in installation.”
And the fact is that the use of IIoT is clearly growing. For example, many manufacturers are increasingly using IIoT sensors to measure vibration, temperature and lubricant viscosity to detect equipment problems before they result in extensive and costly downtime. Other IIoT sensors provide real-time information on production, inventory levels and asset location. Wireless technology has become the preferred way to network these sensors because it is faster and cheaper to deploy than copper or fiber.
Industry-wide initiative toward next-generation Wi-FI
According to Eric McLaughlin, vice president of the Client Computing Group and general manager of the Wireless Solutions Group at Intel Corporation, Wi-Fi technology is an essential ingredient in enabling the major transformation taking place in the industrial IoT market.
“Applications such as autonomous mobile robots (AMR) and industrial remote human management interface (HMI) devices require the mobility, functional safety, high reliability, low latency, robust security and determinism that Wi-Fi 6/6E can deliver, especially when combined with TSN (time-sensitive networking) solutions. We are pleased to lead this evolution of Wi-Fi technology and applaud the work the WBA is doing in this space.”.
Prepared by the WBA’s Wi-Fi 6/6E for IIoT working group, led by Intel, Cisco and Deutsche Telekom, the report provides an overview of Wi-Fi 6 and 6E capabilities that are ideal for sensors and other IIoT applications, such as:
- Scheduled access enabled by trigger-based orthogonal frequency domain multiple access (OFDMA) (TB) in Wi-Fi 6 provides the ability to reduce or eliminate contention and system boundary latency. This leads to higher levels of determinism applicable to all real-time and IIOT applications.
- Wi-Fi 6 provides many deterministic QoS capabilities, such as traffic prioritization, which is a key component of time-sensitive networking (TSN) for Industry 4.0 applications. Another example is multi-link operation (MLO), a capability that helps provide high reliability for applications that cannot tolerate any packet loss.
- The Fine Timing Measurement (FTM) protocol, specified in the IEEE 802.11-2016 standard, enables both time synchronization and accurate determination of the range and position/location of an element. This can be used for both Autonomous Mobile Robot (AMR) and Automated Guided Vehicle (AGV) applications, in route planning, exception management and safety-related aspects, including proximity-based collision avoidance. This capability does not require additional Wi-Fi infrastructure, so manufacturers can implement it immediately, for example, as part of their migration to Industry 4.0.
- The target-wake-time (TWT) feature added to Wi-Fi 6 provides more efficient power savings and improved scheduling. This capability is a good option for battery-powered IIoT nodes that need to transmit infrequently, such as a sensor that uploads data only when a motor’s temperature exceeds a certain threshold.
- Wi-Fi 6E supports up to 1.2 GHz of spectrum, making it ideal for use cases that require both multi-Gb/s throughput and determinism, such as industrial AR/VR/MR and sensor fusion.
Moreover, the report also includes RF/network deployment guidelines for factories, warehouses, logistics and other use cases. For example, it provides recommendations for leveraging 802.11ax/Wi-Fi 6 scheduling capabilities to optimize traffic patterns and manage critical QoS requirements. Another example is the use of high-gain directional antennas to increase channel reuse rates and avoid metal racks and other signal attenuation elements commonly found in warehouses.
Ongoing projects around next-generation Wi-Fi.
The WBA says there are more than three dozen vendors, service providers and other organizations that have been involved in the development of the white paper and some of the ongoing projects around new Wi-Fi standards mentioned in the paper thanks to all of them are:
- Cisco, Intel and their partners are working on AMR and AGV related use cases where key requirements include <10-20ms latency, <50km/h speed and 99.9999% reliability.
- Cisco and Mettis Aerospace are working on sensor applications, where requirements include very high reliability, low power consumption and high device density.
- Work is also being done on video fusion and AMR use cases, such as collision avoidance, whose technical requirements include <20 ms latency and <1 ms jitter.
- Cisco is working on safety monitoring applications, which require <1 ms latency for applications such as automatically stopping a machine after a sensor detects that the person has left the workstation.
- Cisco, Mettis Aerospace and Intel are working on AR/VR applications with resolutions up to 80K and 90fps, where throughput requirements can be up to 100 Mb/s.
- CCisco is working on automotive use cases, such as high-density storage batch logistics, where <60dBm interference is key for reliable operation.
In this regard, Matt MacPherson, CTO of Cisco Wireless, said, “The next industrial evolution will depend not only on the ability to connect more things, but also to add greater reliability, intelligence and security. This can only be done when the world’s leading companies work together with progressive Industry 4.0 customers to explore and implement new game-changing technologies.”
He added: “We are proud of the work we have done with the WBA to ensure customers understand how, when and where to apply the latest innovations. Thanks to advances in wireless technology, industrial IoT is at the center of the next industrial revolution.”
Ahmed Hafez, vice president of network convergence at Deutsche Telekom, also indicates, “Deutsche Telekom’s industrial partners demand ubiquitous, high-performance wireless connectivity to take their production processes to the next level. Converged access combining 5G cellular and Wi-Fi6/6E networks will play a key role in comprehensively meeting their application and process demands in the near future.”
