The combined expertise of Ericsson, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Hitachi America R&D demonstrates the promise of 5G, AI, and IoT technologies to modernize manufacturing. At the electric vehicle assembly facility of Hitachi Astemo Americas in Berea, Kentucky, a private 5G infrastructure testing was run. This effort attempts to dispel the myth that the benefits of modern technologies will only become apparent in the distant future.
Ericsson’s Thomas Noren, who is in charge of PCN Commercial and Operations, said. “The best news about this collaboration is that it doesn’t include technologies that won’t be made available for quite some time.
Ericsson, AWS, and Hitachi America R&D have demonstrated how collaboration can spur innovation as leading companies in the world of technology. The partnership between Ericsson Private 5G and the AWS Snow Family, which offers the private cellular networks necessary for creating machine learning (ML) models within the manufacturing complex, is at the heart of this endeavor.
The chief architect of Hitachi Astemo Americas and vice president of R&D for Hitachi America, Sudhanshu Gaur, said: “In order to demonstrate how smart factories can currently operate, we investigated and confirmed novel use cases made possible by private 5G.
The quick implementation of use cases made possible by Ericsson Private 5G, demonstrated by the successful installation of cameras on an operational assembly line, is one of the collaboration’s key learnings. This demonstrated the effectiveness of the 5G network by enabling real-time analysis of component assembly procedures.
The research also showed the potential for fault identification to improve performance and dependability in quality inspections. The testing showed that computer vision, supported by a private 5G network, could scan several assembly components at once, detecting flaws at a sub-millimeter level, considerably exceeding the capabilities of the human eye. This covers augmented reality, robotics automation, real-time machine control, and quality assurance.
Global Lead of Private Wireless at AWS Chris McKenna stated:
We were able to demonstrate a trustworthy and secure connection to conduct machine vision inferences at the site to assist spot flaws sooner by utilizing the Ericsson Private 5G Network solution and running artificial intelligence and machine learning models on an AWS Snow Family device.
The partnership between Ericsson, AWS, and Hitachi represents a turning point for the industrial sector by illuminating the immediate effects of 5G, AI, and automation technologies on sustainability, productivity, and efficiency.
