Industrial Communication Research Articles

Power-over-fiber-based optical wireless communication systems towards 6G

This paper reports two implementations of power-over-fiber (PoF) solutions applied to radio-over-fiber (RoF) and optical wireless communication (OWC) systems, in the context of an industrial environment. We employ a conventional 62.5-µm multimode fiber (MMF) to deliver optical power to different communication links based on RoF, free-space optics (FSO), and visible light communication (VLC) technologies aiming beyond 5G (B5G) and 6G applications. First, a 3.5-GHz 5G New Radio (5G NR) signal is transmitted throughout a 20-km single-mode optical fiber (SMF) link using RoF technology. Regarding the PoF system, a 5-W optical power is transmitted through a 100-m MMF link. A photovoltaic power converter (PPC) and a DC/DC converter are employed to convert the power from the optical to the electrical domain and adjust the voltage level, respectively, with the purpose of energizing a remote RoF module. The attainable optical and electrical power transmission efficiencies (OPTE and PTE) are 80% and 19%, respectively. Posterior, a second PoF system is implemented to power a hybrid RoF/FSO/VLC B5G system, comprising a 200-m MMF and an additional DC/DC converter. Over 10.5 W of optical power is transmitted to feed an electrical amplifier (EA) and a white LED from the VLC link. In this configuration, we achieve 78% and 18.5% of OPTE and PTE, respectively. Furthermore, a performance investigation based on the root mean square error vector magnitude (EVMRMS) metric is conducted to evaluate the signal using the implemented PoF systems and a conventional electrical power supply. In the first implementation, a throughput of 600 Mbps is achieved with 100-MHz bandwidth without performance degradation, when compared to the conventional-powered RoF system, whereas, in the second implementation, 60-Mbps throughput is achieved when employing the FSO and VLC technologies simultaneously, demonstrating the applicability and potential of the PoF technique for B5G and 6G industrial communications.

Promoting employee well-being and commitment in communication industries

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine the well-being initiatives and programs offered to full-time communication employees and identifies antecedents of employee subjective well-being and commitment in the workplace (e.g. organizational attention to mental health in the workplace and perceived organizational support, POS).Design/methodology/approachGuided by organizational support theory (OST), we conducted an online survey with 262 full-time communication professionals.FindingsThe data show that a variety of well-being initiatives and programs (e.g. mental health assistance programs and flexible working hours) are offered to communication employees, who receive this information from various sources (e.g. emails and announcements at employee meetings). Additionally, the number of well-being initiatives also positively predicted organizational attitudes and attention to mental health in the workplace. Supporting OST, attitudes and attention to mental health in the workplace positively predicted POS, which subsequently predicted subjective well-being and organizational commitment.Research limitations/implicationsThe study offers practical implications around the communication professionals’ experience in employee well-being and culture. Perspectives from internal communication teams will help organizations leverage their efficiency in creating a supportive work culture around mental well-being and contribute to the understanding of well-being in communication industries. Theoretically, we extended the range of OST, by testing the theory in a new context of communication professionals during the pandemic.Originality/valueAlthough communication professionals carry a critical internal communication role in actively promoting employee mental health, well-being and healthy organizational cultures, very little research has been dedicated to investigating how they handle these subjects themselves. Therefore, this study provides original value by focusing on the perceptions, knowledge and action taken by communication professionals when responding to organizations’ well-being programs/initiatives offerings during the peak of COVID-19 and the factors that influence communication professionals’ subjective well-being.

A TOE-DCV approach to green supply chain adoption for sustainable operations in the semiconductor industry

Semiconductor industry plays a critical role for the global economy. Semiconductor industry provides various necessary technologies such as IoT, AI, modern fabrication technologies and so on to various industries including automotive industry, electronic and communication industry, healthcare industry, construction and building industry, space industry, and so on. However, semiconductor supply chain experiences various supply chain related risks and challenges because of its procedural complexities, global supply chain integrations, government policy and regulations, competitiveness, technological complexities, and so on. Not many studies available which investigated the risk, resilience, and complexities regarding green supply chain adoption by semiconductor industry. In this context, the objective of this study is to examine the risks, resilience, and complexities for managing the green supply chain adoption for higher sustainability in the semiconductor industry. Utilizing the TOE framework (Technology-Organization-Environment) and DCV (Dynamic Capability View), we developed a research model to achieve this purpose. Subsequently, this model was validated through structural equation modelling, involving 356 respondents affiliated with the semiconductor industry. This study highlights that technological risk aspects comprising of technological turbulence and risk, compatibility and complexity, organizational dynamic capabilities, and resilience along with appropriate policy and regulations could help successful adoption of green supply chain management in the semiconductor industry.

Research and Application of a Generalized Power Communication Framework with Joint Security Protection Mechanism

Background: The rapid development of Industry 4.0 has opened up new power systems, which face a more complex network topology and a broader range of security threats. This has led to an urgent demand for a coordinated, lightweight, and secure communication management method. Methods: This paper presents a general power communication framework with a joint security protection mechanism that is suitable for coordinated management and transmission safety. The framework manages the protocol’s thread management of the device by converting it to the framework’s process management. It formulates specifications for protocols and equipment that access the framework to achieve support for multiple protocols and equipment. This reduces the difficulty of system operation and maintenance, as well as system complexity, and improves management efficiency. Additionally, the joint security protective mechanism for plugin authentication and protocol encryption is introduced to enable secure data transmission and guarantee the framework's security management. Finally, two experiments have been conducted to discuss and confirm the effectiveness and safety of the framework. Results: The results of the two experiments and the following analysis show that our framework is superior to the chosen well-known industrial commercial communication platforms, and the time delay cost by our mechanism doesn’t significantly affect the real-time data transmission in the power industry, proving its feasibility in both IoT and power applications. Conclusion: Our framework demonstrates exceptional performance in terms of time lag and packet loss during the experiment, surpassing other IoT communication frameworks. Furthermore, it maintains its high standards even under rigorous security analysis.

Full Diversity Space Time Codes for Next Generation Wireless Sensor Networks

For the next generation of wireless sensor networks, this research paper proposes two distinguished, robust space-time codes with low complexity and full diversity. The channel is constructed using Quasi-deterministic radio channel generation (Quadriga), which pursues a geometric stochastic model. This paper discusses an uplink perspective on an industrial communication system. A master node design with four distributed antennas is suggested. Two antennas are available on slave nodes, where the proposed space time coding can be used. Additionally, zero-forcing (ZF) and minimum mean squared error (MMSE)-based low-complexity decoders are designed. The proposed codes outperform the Alamouti code under identical circumstances, according to simulation data. The simulation results show that a coding gain of about 5dB in comparison to Alamouti code is achieved. A high coding gain is attained, which results in a more reliable transmission, according to the bit error rate (BER). This research paper significantly contributes to the standardization of the next-generation wireless sensor networks.

안면인식결제가 사용자 저항과 이용의도에 미치는 영향

The modern society is undergoing tremendous changes due to technological innovation. The birth of new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), big data, and cloud computing marks the beginning of the fourth industrial revolution. Various new industries are rapidly emerging as information and communication technology (ICT), artificial intelligence, big data, and other new technologies such as the Internet of Things are combined. Fintech is a technology that is attracting attention as new technologies and the financial industry merge. The concept of Fintech was born through the convergence of financial industry and information and communication technology by governments of all countries around the world and continuous innovation. Fintech is an innovation in the financial industly that uses new technologies. Use aiiificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing, the Internet of Things and other modern science and technology achievements to reform financial products, business models and business procedures. One of the most basic tasks in financial business is payment service. The development and introduction of new technologies has changed the way people pay. One of the notable fields in payment service is face recognition payment. Face recognition is being used in various fields due to its high accuracy and low invasiveness. Facial recognition payment is a technology that uses computer vision. It uses computers to mimic human vision, allowing computers to analyze images. It is a technology that implements identity authentication based on personal facial feature information. The purpose of this study is to analyze the effect relationship of facial recognition payment on usage intention. For basic statistical analysis of the questionnaire, SPSS 23.0, a statistical package, was used. For hypothesis testing, concentrated validity and discriminant validity were verified using the structural equation package Smart PLS 4.0. Infmmation technology factors that dete1mine face recognition payment were divided into system characteristics and user characteristics. A summary of the study follows. First, The system characteristics of the face recognition payment service were partially adopted for user resistance. Second, the user characteristics of face recognition payment had a significant effect on user resistance. Third, user resistance had a significant effect on intention to use.

Why co-working spaces in an analogical environment exhibit different recovery abilities under the COVID-19 shock? Evidence from China

Although co-working spaces have attracted significant attention as a type of platform organisation in the sharing economy, little is known about why some spaces faced with an analogical environment demonstrate obvious differences in recovery abilities after sudden shocks, such as the one caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. To understand this novel phenomenon, we collected data from the Chengdu high-tech zone and employed grounded theory and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to identify the possible causal configurations for high levels of resilience in small and medium-sized platform organisations. Our findings reveal that (1) there are five antecedent configurations that multi-morphologically lead to the same outcome; (2) compared with other antecedent conditions, networking ability and diverse value co-creation with customers play more important roles in the formation of a high level of co-working spaces’ resilience; (3) under certain circumstances, a substitutional relationship exists between industrial experience and communication ability; and (4) when the endogenous factors of organisations (e.g. their abilities and resources) coincide with complex external environments, organisational resilience is expressed. In this manner, our study contributes to the organisational resilience literature and research on co-working spaces. Some practical suggestions for the sustainable development of co-working spaces are also provided.

A 28 GHz wideband planar stepped-shaped MIMO antenna with isolating metallic sheet for 5G millimeter wave communications

Presented work describes the symmetrical quad-element Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) antenna operating at 28 GHz for Fifth generation (5G) millimeter-wave (mm-wave) spectrum. The core of this antenna system features a stepped-shaped patch radiator precisely tuned to 28 GHz, effectively broadening its resonance across the desired operational frequency band. To improve isolation, an Isolating Metallic Sheet (IMS) is precisely placed between the patch radiators of projected antenna. Rogers RT5880 substrate is used to fabricate with dimensions of 20.48 × 20.48 mm2, thickness of 1.6 mm, and dielectric constant of 2.2. Both simulationand measurement outcomesindicate that the antenna has a bandwidth of 7.13 GHz, covering frequencies ranging from 25.21 GHz to 32.34 GHz, for a fractional bandwidth of 24.78 %. Key antenna performance measurements include a peak amplitude of up to 53 dB and a significant port-to-port isolation of more than 20 dB. Ithasbeen carefully examined revealing a minimum channel capacity loss of 0.135 bits/s/Hz, a mean effectivegain of −3 dB, a diversity gain of around 10 dB, a total active reflection coefficient of −10 dB, and an envelope correlation coefficient of less than 0.005. Presentedantenna meets industrial requirementsfor high-speed mm-wave communications in 28 GHz 5G networks.

Deployment of efficient MANET testbed using aggregation based archive population optimization

In today’s 6G era, Mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) have been enhanced by rapid technological advancement in the wireless communication industry to better support a wide range of domains, including military operations, emergency operations, urban settings, and natural crisesmanagement. In MANET, self-organizing mobile nodes collaborate to build a flexible network architecture. With a MANET, data must transit through numerous intermediate nodes even before reaches its destination node. Local link connectivity is essential for the establishment and preservation of routes. To decrease energy usage, these findings suggest the Aggregation-based Archive Population Optimization(AAPO) along with Ad-hoc On-demand Distance Vector (AODV) Routing Protocol. For both local and global optimal routes, the proposed optimized modelgives top priority. There existtwo different types of rules used by AAPO to evaluate the quality of a route before using it for data transmission. Instead of relying on just one path for transmitting data, AAPO leverages many paths. Also, it minimizes the issue of the network nodes being suddenly inaccessible, which eliminates interruptions in transmissions. However, the suggested optimal routing system considers mobility and energy availability when responding to queries, resulting in significant performance improvements, utilizing 42.69 % of the scenario’s power and functioning at 208.6 kbps with an average PDR of 87.1 %. Also, detailed simulations are conducted using the Matlab (R2021b)software to assess the suggested approach. Furthermore, the suggested protocol outperforms the current methods in terms of effectiveness.

Safe haven properties of industrial stocks against ESG in the United States: Portfolio implication for sustainable investments

This study explores the safe haven role of industry sectors classified by the Global Industry Classification Standards (GICS) for global Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) stocks in the United States. Our study applies the novel cross-quantilogram and quantile time-frequency connectedness approach for daily time series data from November 2019 to October 2023. Our findings confirm that industry sectors, mainly financials, industrial, communication, information technology, energy, consumer staples, and consumer discretionary, are the safe haven avenues at down, normal, and up market conditions; however, these safe haven avenues vanish for the long-term investment horizon. We also explore the risk spillover patterns for the total time domain and the decomposed spillover level for the short- and long-term spillovers. Our connectedness finding shows that the net transmitters and net receiver patterns are similar for the extreme markets but dramatically change for the normal markets. Finally, based on the portfolio rebalancing strategy, the returns of our portfolio, comprised of industry sectors and the ESG index, outperform the overall market. Moreover, our portfolio yields lower negative returns and a higher Sharpe ratio when compared with the overall market returns. These findings confirm the benefits of diversification by reducing downside portfolio risk. This study is primarily relevant for socially responsible portfolio and risk management investors.

Advancing Green Communications: The Role of Radio Frequency Engineering in Sustainable Infrastructure Design

A thorough examination of the role of radio frequency (RF) engineering is crucial for promoting sustainability in communications infrastructure. This review explores the complex interplay between environmental concerns in communication systems and RF engineering. It examines RF engineering approaches and strategies that support the design, implementation, and preservation of environmentally friendly infrastructure, including the integration of renewable energy sources into RF systems, and the prospects and challenges associated with employing RF technologies for fostering sustainable actions in the communications industry. The major findings revealed the importance of RF engineering as it relates to reducing carbon footprints, lowering energy consumption, and enabling environmental sustainability in communication networks. RF engineering is an essential driver of sustainability in the communications industry, considering that it supports the integration of renewable energy sources, optimization of power usage, and improvement of spectrum efficiency. Therefore, the adoption of eco-friendly practices and utilization of RF technological innovations can potentially support a more sustainable and greener digital ecosystem.

Assessing the Integration of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Factors in Sustainable Strategies: A Review of Progress in the Communications Industry

Assessing the Integration of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Factors in Sustainable Strategies: A Review of Progress in the Communications Industry

6G-Enabled Ultra-Reliable Low Latency Communication for Industry 5.0: Challenges and Future Directions

6G-Enabled Ultra-Reliable Low Latency Communication for Industry 5.0: Challenges and Future Directions

The Influence of Organizational Communication, Participative Leadership, and Work Motivation on Employee Creativity: Case Study in the Creative Industries in Bali

This research examines the relationship between organizational communication, participative leadership, work motivation, and employee creativity in the creative industries in Bali. A quantitative research design was adopted, and data was collected from 128 employees working in various creative sectors. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM-PLS) was used for data analysis. The research results show a significant positive relationship between organizational communication, participative leadership, work motivation and employee creativity. Organizational communication, participative leadership, and work motivation together explain about 60.2% of the variance in employee creativity. These findings underscore the importance of fostering open communication channels, empowering leadership practices, and motivational strategies to foster a culture of creativity and innovation in Bali's creative industries. Despite the contributions of this study, several limitations must be acknowledged, the cross-sectional nature of the data limits causal conclusions about the relationships studied.

Functional Biscuits, a Healthy Addition to Your Coffee Break-Evaluating Consumer Acceptability and Willingness to Pay.

An increasing number of individuals are eating out due to work and study commitments. This trend directly influences people's food choices, especially those who frequently rely on snacks and pre-packaged foods. Consuming these foods can lead to long-term health consequences. Adding functional foods to vending machines could lead to healthier choices. Our aim is to evaluate the acceptability and willingness to pay (WTP) of workers and students for a snack pack of novel functional biscuits (FBs) made with high amylose contents. We found that the experimental flour used is effective in preventing various non-communicable diseases; two phases of analysis were carried out on 209 participants. The participants blindly tested the products and only after the sensory evaluation were they informed about the biscuits' health contents. Firstly, the blind investigation highlighted the acceptability of the FBs compared to the conventional biscuits. Secondly, the finite mixture model on WTP revealed that some consumers are interested in the health benefits associated with high-amylose test blends and others are focused on hedonistic taste. The design of a communication strategy and industry approach should aim to assist consumers in comprehending the health benefits and sensory aspects of novel functional foods available on the market.

Thin-film lithium niobate-based electro-optic comb cloning for self-homodyne coherent communication.

As the optical communication industry advances, metropolitan area networks (MANs) and radio access networks (RANs) are extensively deployed on a large scale, demanding energy-efficient integrated light sources and simplified digital signal processing (DSP) technologies. The emergence of thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) has given rise to high-performance, energy-efficient on-chip modulators, making on-chip optical frequency comb (OFC) more appealing. Owing to the phase uniformity and stability of this chip-scale device, it has been possible to eliminate the carrier frequency phase estimation (CPE) in DSP stacks using comb-clone-enabled self-homodyne detection. Here we report the first use, to our knowledge, of a TFLN on-chip electro-optic (EO) frequency comb to realize comb cloning and self-homodyne coherent detection. We transmit three optical pilot tones and eight data channels encoded with 20 Gbaud polarization-multiplexed 16-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (PM-16-QAM) over 10 km and 80 km standard single-mode fibers. The bit error ratios (BERs) of the eight channels reach below 10-3, a result made possible by our on-chip comb. The scalability and mass producibility of on-chip EO combs, combined with the simplified DSP, show potential in our proposed fifth-generation (5G) RAN and MAN transmission scheme.

Edge architecture for the automation and control of flexible manufacturing lines

The automation and control of industrial machines and processes is a task traditionally performed by PLCs and SCADA systems. However, with the advent of Industry 4.0 paradigm, which merges OT and IT domains, this task can also be performed inside the IT domain. This paper proposes an edge architecture where a flexible manufacturing line is led by a state machine programmed and running on the IT domain inside the Manufacturing Execution System. Each industrial asset has been modelled as a black-box, where security and hard real-time functionalities are programmed and controlled inside each black-box by traditional OT tools. Functionalities and variables required to synchronize each black-box, have been modelled as inputs and outputs. These input and output variables and methods are available using Industry 4.0 industrial communication protocols, such as OPC UA or MQTT. Then, a state machine programmed on a high-level IT language model inside the MES, automates the manufacturing line reacting to the inputs and outputs of each black-box. This architecture has been successfully validated automating a manufacturing line composed by a conveyor, a robot and a vision based quality control system.

Critical barriers to effective communication in the construction industry: evidence from Nigeria

The construction industry is vital to the global economy but struggles with communication-related issues that hinder its productivity. However, the construction industry is faced with communication challenges affecting the industry’s productivity. This research aims to assess the barriers to effective communication in the Nigerian construction industry (NCI), measure their significance, and develop a tailored solution to overcome them. The research utilised a quantitative approach, and the data were analysed using descriptive (mean ranking) and inferential statistics (factor analysis). The sample size was estimated using the Cochran formula and previous studies’ judgement. The questionnaires were administered to a sample of 150 construction professionals in Abuja, Nigeria, who were randomly selected based on predefined criteria. One hundred thirty-four (134) were collected, and 119 were considered for further analysis. The questionnaire data were analysed using SPSS. The findings show that 95% of the communication barriers identified in the NCI are statistically significant and critically impact the communication processes in the NCI. Unclear objectives and instructions (MIS = 4.39; SD = 0.871) were found to be the most statistically significant, and religion issues were the only factor not statistically significant. This implies that religion (MIS = 3.01; SD = 0.612) is not a critical barrier to effective communication in the NCI. The factor analysis revealed four barriers to effective communication (Management Related, Employee Related, Organisation Related, and Work Related). This study contributes significantly to the body of knowledge by understanding the obstacles preventing effective communication in the Nigerian construction sector. The study provided a solid background for future work on communication in the construction industry. The study also provided recommendations such as creating a diverse and inclusive workplace with defined goals, diversity incentives, monitoring, advanced communication technologies, strong leadership, teamwork, and work-life balance to improve communication in the construction industry.

Alternating optimized RIS-assisted noma and nonlinear partial differential deep reinforced satellite communication

Satellite communication is crucial for 6 G industrial wireless networks due to its comprehensive communication services, but traditional methods face challenges such as high latency, limited bandwidth, high cost, and integration with terrestrial networks. This highlights the need for innovative communication methods to boost satellite communication efficiency, reliability, and coverage within the context of 6 G industrial applications, which is attempted to address by this research. RISs (Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces) are thin sheets with tiny antennas that are programmed to manipulate radio signals. The RIS has the potential to revolutionize industrial wireless communication by providing greater dynamic and goal-oriented control over radio signals. From there, the wireless environment is being transformed into a service. Besides, the NOMA (Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access) mechanism is a highly effective radio access method in advanced wireless communications that optimizes spectrum utilization and offers improved spectrum efficiency, lower latency, more reliability, and increased connectivity. The current industrial communication network faces limitations such as limited capacity, signal interference overload, complex and expensive infrastructure, and latency issues. The fusion of RIS and NOMA is seen as promising strategy to meet the stringent demands of next-generation networks for immense connectivity. It is particularly innovative for the demanding environment of smart factories by enabling efficient resource sharing, dynamic signal control, ultra-reliable, low-latency communication, cost-effective network, overcoming the signal interference and simplifying the network infrastructure. In this article, we propose a novel approach for device-to-device satellite communication in industrial networks. This approach leverages a RIS (Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface) -assisted cooperative network with NOMA (Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access) and NL-PDDRL (Nonlinear Partial Differential Deep Reinforced Learning) termed AONPDDR (Alternating Optimized and Nonlinear Partial Differential Deep Reinforced) communication. This article focuses on important aspects related to industrial communication networks such as power consumption, energy efficiency, data delivery rate, data loss rate, throughput, latency, coverage, false alarm rate, and bit error rate. The Alternating Optimization-based RIS configuration algorithm optimizes reflecting elements in RIS by maximizing channel vectors and providing a sophisticated upper bound on the highest number of reflective elements. Next, The NL-PDDRL algorithm is designed to function effectively despite environmental uncertainties and constraints. The results indicate that the proposed AONPDDR method outperforms previous benchmark methods in system-achievable aspects.

Integral Cryptanalysis of Reduced-Round IIoTBC-A and Full IIoTBC-B

This paper delves into the realm of cryptographic analysis by employing mixed-integer linear programming (MILP), a powerful tool for automated cryptanalysis. Building on this foundation, we apply the division property method alongside MILP to conduct a comprehensive cryptanalysis of the IIoTBC (industrial Internet of Things block cipher) algorithm, a critical cipher in the security landscape of industrial IoT systems. Our investigation into IIoTBC System A has led to identifying a 14-round integral distinguisher, further extended to a 22-round key recovery. This significant finding underscores the cipher’s susceptibility to sophisticated cryptanalytic attacks and demonstrates the profound impact of combining the division property method with MILP in revealing hidden cipher weaknesses. In the case of IIoTBC System B, our innovative approach has uncovered a full-round distinguisher. We provide theoretical validation for this distinguisher and uncover a pivotal structural issue in the System B algorithm, specifically the non-diffusion of its third branch. This discovery sheds light on inherent security challenges within System B and points to areas for potential enhancement in its design. Our research, through its methodical examination and analysis of the IIoTBC algorithm, contributes substantially to the field of cryptographic security, especially concerning industrial IoT applications. By uncovering and analyzing the vulnerabilities within IIoTBC, we enhance the understanding of cipher robustness and pave the way for advancements in securing industrial IoT communications.