By James Blackman
There have been no significant delays and 3GPP standards are progressing to plan. The Rel-15 standards were finalised in 2018 and Rel-15 devices/networks have been available since 2019. The Rel-16 standards were finalised in 2020 and device/network deployments are just starting to appear now. The Rel-17 standards will be finalised by 3GPP in mid-2022, with the first devices and networks appearing around the end of 2023.
Payne – “definitely not” any delays from a 3GPP point of view
What is the importance of a tool like this (referencing the 5G Network Emulation Solution)?
Network emulators like the Keysight E7515B UXM 5G Wireless Test Platform and the 5G Device Test Solutions that are based on it, enable the wireless ecosystem to test new 5G devices across all stages of the device development workflow – from early modem/chipset development, device integration, and functional/performance testing – through to formal certification and acceptance testing by mobile network operators and national/regional regulators.
They allow protocol, RF, functional and performance testing to be performed in a repeatable, lab-based environment, against the latest 3GPP standards and features ahead of their deployment on commercial mobile networks, accelerating the market availability of new chipsets and devices.
Has the delay with 5G devices impacted the industrial 5G market, particularly?
As above, there have been no significant delays to 5G and the market is progressing, as per expectations. The 5G industrial IoT market is currently attracting a lot of attention and is enabled by some of the new features introduced in Rel-16 including enhanced ultra-reliability and low latency communications (eURLLC), time-sensitive networking (TSN), and non-public networks (NPN) (private networks). Keysight is developing pioneering test solutions for this emerging market, with the E7515B UXM 5G Wireless Test Platform being a central component.
It seems like the market’s focus remains on the consumer market, and the industrial market has been required to ‘make do’ with consumer-grade R15 5G devices? Is this the case?
Definitely not. As mentioned above, some of the key features needed by the industrial market were only introduced in Rel-16. It may be true that the modem makers’ first priority was to implement the Rel-16 enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) features used by consumer devices and smartphones, but development and testing of the eURLLC/TSN/NPN features is now progressing rapidly and devices supporting them will be available later in 2022. After the 3GPP specifications are finalised for any new release, it takes around 18 months for those features to be commercially deployed in networks and devices, so Rel-16 is running to plan.
How does the Industry 4.0 market get its hands on industrial-grade R16 and R17 devices more quickly? What needs to happen?
The realisation of the Industry 4.0 vision is dependent on a whole ecosystem of players, including:
• standards organisations responsible for developing the core technical specifications;
• national/regional regulators responsible for licensing and approvals;
• modem makers responsible for implementing features defined in the technical specifications in their chipsets;
• network infrastructure vendors responsible for providing the base stations and core network components over which they communicate, by implementing the same technical specifications;
• device and module makers responsible for taking those modems/chipsets and integrating them into their commercial devices;
• manufacturers responsible for industrial automation equipment and control systems;
• test equipment manufacturers responsible for providing the test systems and solutions that enable the development and testing of the individual components and the full end-to-end industrial automation systems.
Major technical challenges must be investigated and overcome by each of these players, at each stage of their respective workflow before the individual components can be brought together to enable the deployment of the final Industry 4.0 end-to-end solutions. Keysight’s test solutions enable many of these challenges to be investigated and overcome. These test solutions include:
• network emulation solutions that allow the modems and devices to be developed and tested for compliance with the 3GPP standards, across the protocol, RF, functional and performance domains;
• channel emulation solutions allow the real-world performance of devices and base stations to be assessed; for example, by applying the fading, reflections, doppler shifts, interference etc. found in a live network environment;
• network test solutions enable testing of the core network; for example protocol implementation and load testing;
• device emulation solutions enable testing of the network infrastructure components before commercial devices are available;
• network security solutions enable threat simulation and detection of vulnerabilities.
How does Keysight view progress in the Industry 4.0 market? It seems R16 networks are starting to go in, often in private setups, often married to ‘vertical’ spectrum, but their usage tends to be limited to mobility, collaborative worker, and critical safety apps – and not to industrial IoT solutions delivering higher-grade control and intelligence for smart production. Is this right?
The Industry 4.0 market is now developing at pace, with the major players in this ecosystem all now investing heavily in the development of end-to-end industrial IoT solutions. Included in this ecosystem are now some of the major global industrial giants who have never previously engaged with cellular technology but are now understanding the potential 5G offers to deliver the vision of Industry 4.0, and have started developing 5G-based industrial IoT robotic, monitoring and control systems.
Major mobile network operators have also created labs to enable the different ecosystem players to bring together their individual components and solutions, allowing them to be tested for interoperability and assess their performance when working together to provide end-to-end industrial IoT and factory automation solutions. It is true that this still is a nascent market, only recently enabled by the Rel-16 features that are only now starting to be delivered, so it will take several years for the vision to be fully realised.
However, at Keysight we can see via our numerous industry collaborations the progress that is being made within the ecosystem, and we are extremely excited at what we see coming and the potential of this market in the not-too-distant future.
What will R16 and R17, respectively, give to the Industry 4.0 market – which current R15 networks / devices cannot deliver?
The key features introduced in Rel-16 for the industrial IoT market are those mentioned above, which deliver the following capabilities for the IIoT market that were not possible based on the Rel-15 specifications:
eURLLC – adds key enhancements that were missing from the R15 URLLC specifications to improve the reliability and latency of the communications link, which are key requirements of business-critical industrial control systems.
TSN – enables communications over cellular via Ethernet protocol data units (PDUs), at a much lower layer of the protocol stack, eliminating the inherent delays involved when using higher-layer protocols such as internet protocol (IP). This enables time-critical control messages to be sent, e.g., for controlling robots.
Non-Public Networks – allows the deployment of private 5G networks that do not rely on a commercial 5G network, which may be used to provide a dedicated network for factory automation, for example.
