The value of Industry4.0 comes through the integration of automation, data analytics, manufacturing and products in a way that unlocks new business and operating models. Merging 5G cellular networks and the factories of the future comes with its own difficulties, because these two domains have been historically disjoint, and this is the key opening identified by this project: as a surge of skilled researchers and engineers will be required in the upcoming years to work at the crossroads of factory automation and 5G evolutions, the mission of 5GSmatFact is to create an exciting EU-based cohesive training and research environment for young European and international researchers.

5GSmartFact features a selected consortium of academia (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Aalborg University), research centres (i2Cat, Centre National pour la Recherche Scientifique), 5G companies (NEC, Nokia, Siradel) and expert companies in factory automation (ABB, Robert Bosch, Ingeniarius, Roboception), together with supporting institutions (ESADE, Universidade de Coimbra, Université Paris-Saclay) that will deploy activities in three technical workpackages.

The project is organised around 3 technical workpackages that cover a total of 6 major technical challenges:

Workpackage 2. 5G and its evolution for i4.0

C2.1. Spectrum, planning and exploitation models for 5G private networks

C2.2 Access links and RIS designs for IIoT

Workpackage 3. Network design for communication and computation in IIoT

C3.1. Multi-service network slicing under uncertainty

C3.2. Network and computation infrastructure for i4.0

Workpackage 4. 5G-aware industrial applications

C4.1. Positioning for mMTC to support IIoT applications

C4.2. Integration of robot applications in 5G networks

The overall objective of 5GSmartFact is to train young researchers to work at the crossroads of factory automation and 5G evolutions, so as to lead to a complete redesign of robot architectures and hence to a leap forward in the automation industry, hence driving business disruption.

5GSmartFact addresses the research challenges associated to the radical paradigm push required in 5G evolutions to support the future Industry4.0. 5GSmartFact researchers will study, develop, optimize and assess the deployment of 5G networks that target the Industrial IoT requirements in factory environments, and exploit them to integrate current and new factory applications.