Читать книгу Industry 4.0 Vision for the Supply of Energy and Materials - Группа авторов - Страница 20

Generally, the major driver in introducing any new technology is the potential increased revenue and its benefit to the principal sectors such as health, safety, and industry. Communication is a key technology that integrates the digital and physical world and has redefined many consumer-oriented businesses in health care, finance, and industry. The new wave in communication technology provides real-time and seamless connections between industrial assets (the things, machines, sites, and environments) and enables intelligent industrial operations for extensive and heterogeneous production line, instrumentation, and process monitoring. Thus, different industrial sectors are motivated to deploy suitable communication technologies and infrastructure with flexible installation and high availability. Typically, wired communication in industrial systems is built on an IEEE 802.3 standard (Ethernet) that offers sophisticated solutions within strict requirements. Furthermore, nonhierarchical networks, increases in number of sensors, and extended connection of operating equipment change the network topology of wired systems and increase data traffic. This highlights the needs of future systems for broadband and deterministic communication that assist functions and provides synchronicity between the production processes. Hence, the communication systems used today will either broaden or be replaced by new developments.

With the growing demand and advance in communication technologies, wireless network becomes a concise, optimized, and widely popular solution for connectivity. Another promising candidate technology for communication is cellular networks (e.g., 4G/LTE and 5G) that enable ubiquitous access to information in disparate vertical applications. Wireless technology reinforces Industry 4.0 movement, and its successful deployment enables the possibility for fully autonomous systems and platforms. Notable advantages of wireless communication are system simplicity, reduced system size, and mass as well as improved system resilience to hazards through communication diversity. The principal benefits of wireless technologies in industrial applications could be associated to the following distinct areas.