Partners: Haier, Mstar, China Mobile, Huawei

Case Overview: Haier interconnected factory used differentiated and deterministic networking service capabilities based on 5GDN to build an intelligent manufacturing system for multiple scenarios, such as 5G+Smart Devices, 5G+Machine Vision, and 5G+AR Man-Machine Collaboration. This factory enables flexible and efficient mass customization production.

Case Description:

Haier interconnected factory used differentiated and deterministic networking service capabilities based on 5GDN to build an intelligent manufacturing system for multiple scenarios, such as 5G+Smart Devices, 5G+Machine Vision, and 5G+AR Man-Machine Collaboration. This factory enables flexible and efficient mass customization production.

At July 2019, Haier, China Mobile, and Huawei jointly launched the world's first AI+5G interconnected factory at the 2019 World Industrial Internet Conference (WIIC) in Qingdao. The Haier interconnection factory provides differentiated and deterministic network service capabilities based on the 5G deterministic networking's cloud native ultra-distributed architecture, dynamic intelligent network slicing, and super-performance heterogeneous MEC's technical kernel, build an intelligent manufacturing system with 5GDN+smart devices, 5GDN+machine vision, and 5GDN+AR man-machine collaboration to achieve flexible and efficient mass customization. Based on 5GDN, digital operation of production data is implemented, so that managers can gain real-time and accurate insights into the production process and product running status in a more comprehensive manner. In addition, AI+5G technologies are integrated for in-depth application at nodes such as user interaction and product R&D, improve information self-sensing throughout the entire process and match supply and demand with higher precision.

At September 2019, Haier, Mstar, China Mobile, and Huawei jointly launched the world's first "5G+machine vision" solution for smart factory at Huawei Connect 2019. This solution is an achievement made by smart manufacturers, carriers, equipment vendors, and application providers. It is the first time that cloud-based machine vision systems with 5G+MEC have been combined in industrial manufacturing. This solution marks a milestone after the world's first "5G+AI” smart factory was jointly released at the end of July this year. It represents a big step forward in the exploration and practice of 5G smart factory.

Machine vision provides automatic inspection and identification, which have been widely used in industrial manufacturing, but "bottlenecks" limit the shift from industrial manufacturing to intelligent manufacturing. The "5G+machine vision" solution uses 5G+MEC computing capability as a basis, and selects machine vision as the upper-layer application to form an end-to-end solution. The machine vision app is deployed on MEC to achieve cloud-based control, algorithm self-optimization, and enterprise data security through data localization. In addition, this solution reduces costs and improves quality and efficiency. Cloud-based algorithms greatly reduce investment. The ultra-high bandwidth and ultra-low latency network makes the inspection more flexible and improves operations efficiency. Collaboration between big data processing and deep learning ensures an improvement of quality. Cloud-based deployment makes commissioning, maintenance, and expansion more convenient, greatly shortening their durations.