Learning Factory of 5G-based Plug-and-play Application in Manufacturing

Abstract

The rise of 5th-Generation (5G) technology has provided great potential for the development of manufacturing industry. How to apply 5G technology in manufacturing industry has become a current hot topic. With the growth of personalized demands and the shortening of product life cycles, the flexibility of production model for Industry 4.0-oriented manufacturing has become an inevitable trend, and manufacturers need to be capable to quickly build or reconfigure new production systems to respond to market changes. Plug-and-play (PnP) of functional units is the basic guarantee to realize the rapid set-up and reconfiguration of production systems, where the construction of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) is one of the key problems to be solved. Therefore, the use of 5G technology to realize the agile and real-time transmission of large amounts of data, combined with the standard modular design to achieve the PnP of functional units, and construct IIOT and CPS, will be able to fully stimulate the development potential of future manufacturing industry. The Advanced Manufacturing Technology Center (AMTC) at Tongji University (Shanghai, China) carried out Learning Factory (LF) design and implementation of 5G-based PnP application, in order to provide application scenarios for the rapid establishment and operation of production systems. In addition, the AMTC developed use cases on demand for research, and cultivate students` knowledge and skills related to 5G and PnP in manufacturing industry. This paper introduces the environment and training process design of the LF in detail, as well as the current progress of implementation case in AMTC.