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At present, 5G applications in the industrial field are still in the early exploration stage of head enterprises. In the future, with the leap in the capability of 5G networks, in addition to bringing a more extreme experience and greater capacity, it will also open the era of the Internet of Things and penetrate into various industries.

First, China builds an average of 10,000 5G base stations every week

5G, short for the fifth generation mobile communication technology, is a new generation of broadband mobile communication technology with the characteristics of high speed, low delay and large connection, and is the network infrastructure to realize the interconnection of man and machine. The spectrum utilization efficiency of 5G, that is, the bandwidth limit that can be provided by the same frequency band, reached 3.68 times that of 4G. The energy efficiency of 5G at full load, that is, the bandwidth that can be provided per unit power consumption is between 26.64 times and 28.25 times that of 4G. The laying of 5G can effectively alleviate the problem of network congestion and bring more space for the development of the Internet industry.

On December 21, 2017, at the 78th plenary meeting of the International Telecommunications Standards Organization 3GPP RAN, the initial version of 5G-NR was officially released, which is the first 5G standard available for commercial deployment in the world. What is different from the past is that the company that accounts for a high proportion of 5G core patents this time is China's Huawei. In July 2018, Huawei released a white paper on the top ten application scenarios in the 5G era, describing the top ten 5G new industrial applications such as VR, AR, Internet of vehicles, intelligent manufacturing, and wireless medical care. On June 6, 2019, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology officially issued a 5G commercial license, marking the official arrival of the 5G era.

Figure 1:5G application scenario

Source: Xinhua Finance

Subsequently, China's major telecom operators have increased the construction of 5G base stations. In 2020, although China has suffered from the serious impact of the new coronavirus epidemic, enterprises are still accelerating the speed of 5G construction and trying to push back the time. In June of that year, Miao Wei, minister of Industry and Information Technology, revealed that China added an average of more than 10,000 5G base stations every week.

By December 2021, China has built more than 1.15 million 5G base stations, accounting for more than 70% of the world's 5G independent network, which is the world's largest and technologically advanced 5G independent network. All prefecture-level urban areas, more than 97% of county urban areas and 40% of towns and towns in the country have achieved 5G network coverage. 5G terminal users reached 450 million, accounting for more than 80% of the world. Governments across the country actively released policy dividends, according to the statistics of the China Academy of Information and Communication Technology, provinces and cities across the country issued more than 320 5G related policies, and local conditions, combined with local economic and industrial characteristics, clear the development direction and goals of 5G industry and key applications. Taking Beijing as an example, on January 16, the Beijing Municipal Communications Administration disclosed that by the end of 2021, the city had opened 52,000 5G base stations, an increase of 14,000 over the end of last year; The number of 5G terminal users reached 14.884 million. Among them, Tongzhou District (including the urban sub-center) has opened 3,859 5G base stations.

Two, Shougang Jingtang company driverless crane

With the widespread application of 5G in China, what changes will it bring to people's lives? People's biggest feeling may be that at home leisure, binge-watching, playing games more fluent; In subway stations, train stations, airports and other densely populated areas, communication is no longer congested. In fact, this is just people's intuitive feeling and experience, 5G technology is imperceptibly changing all aspects of the economy and society, especially in the industrial field of application, greatly improving the upgrading and innovation level of China's industrial automation and information system.

Located in Caofeidian, Tangshan City, Hebei Province, Shougang Jingtang Company is one of China's leading iron and steel enterprises. This enterprise can not be described as "factory", because the factory area of 22 square kilometers, the factory has its own port, railways, buses, traffic lights, and even traffic police, equivalent to a small city. Shougang Caofeidian Plant has the world's largest single-process steelmaking facility, in the production process, mines and coal are constantly shipped from afar and stacked in the storage yard. After sintering, coking, transported to the blast furnace smelting. The iron ore is turned into molten iron at high temperature and sent to the converter for rough refining, where scrap steel is added and oxygen is blown into the converter. The molten steel after rough refining is further refined. The molten steel is covered with different slag layers for heat preservation in the continuous casting process, and then different billets are generated, which are then made into steel plates and other structures by the rolling mill and made into finished products after post-treatment. Through docks and trucks to downstream plants, it supplies tens of millions of tons of high-quality steel worldwide each year.

In the crane workshop of the steel mill, the rolled steel coil is packaged and classified in this workshop. Some is sent to other workshops for processing, and some is transferred to freight trucks. All high speed crane cabs are very strange, because there is no human operating inside. According to steel mill engineers, the crane control is completely automated, which is an automation platform based on 5G communication network.

Promoting the automation and informatization of industry requires the construction of efficient communication platforms to transmit information. The previous communication platform usually has two schemes, one is a wired scheme based on fiber optics, and the other is a wireless scheme based on industrial WIFI. And they all have their shortcomings. Specifically, the optical fiber solution requires laying optical cables and is only suitable for fixed scenarios. If the equipment itself is moved on a large scale, it will be very difficult to lay. The big problem of industrial WIFI is that the stability is too low, and there will be instability such as stutter, packet loss, and delay. It's fine for monitoring, but difficult to operate. The intelligent crane needs to accurately identify the location of the grab based on the video signal returned by the camera, if the sudden occurrence of a catdon, each more than 20 tons of steel coil fell from the sky, the consequences will be unimaginable.

The current 5G communication can effectively solve the above problems and fill the technical gap. As a wireless network, 5G is easy to lay, can support mobile devices, and is stable enough to support automated operations and remote control operations. Therefore, it is widely used in steel mill cranes, and the scene presented in front of people is that many unmanned cranes are operating at high speed.

Third, Tianjin Port fully automated intelligent loading and unloading transportation

At the container terminal of Tianjin Port, tower cranes constantly grab containers from cargo ships. The tower crane will transport the goods on the truck to the bridge crane, and then put the goods into categories neatly, the whole process is not only orderly, but also with a sense of rhythm. But if you look closer, you can see that there's no one in the truck driver's seat, there's no one in the crane driver's seat, there's no one in the whole transportation process. This is because the application of 5G communication technology in the port, in addition to supporting the automated operation of mobile trucks and cranes, the cranes can also be remote video operation. The use of 5G technology to upgrade the wharf, without breaking ground construction like laying optical fiber, effectively avoiding the problem of terminal shutdown.

Figure 2: Container Terminal of Tianjin Port

Source: Xinhua Finance

At the container terminal of Tianjin Port, 31 tall field Bridges used to be "men's stages". Nowadays, with the completion of intelligent transformation, only need to gently use the hand, the machine can replace the manual to complete a large number of heavy physical labor. Previously, each bridge needed four employees, and the entire terminal needed more than 100 people; After the transformation, one operator can manage six field Bridges, and the operator staff is reduced to 40 people. In terms of efficiency, the number of lifting boxes per yard bridge increased by 30%; Waiting times for vehicles have been reduced from 30 minutes to an hour to five minutes. Intelligent transformation not only brings a new user experience, but also brings a substantial improvement in working efficiency. On December 18, 2021, as a container operated by the "Tiansheng River" ship of COSCO Shipping was hoisted onto the ship, the annual container throughput of Tianjin Port exceeded 20 million TEUs for the first time, marking a new leap in the container business of Tianjin Port and further upgrading the status of Tianjin Port in the global international hub port.

Fourth, 5G communication in underground coal mines is also showing its skills

What about 5G networks underground? Tashan Coal Mine, located in Datong City, Shanxi Province, is the largest single mine in the world. The large screen in the control room of Tashan Coal Mine clearly shows the real-time situation of mining and transportation under the mine, which is also achieved through 5G network. The coal mining face is 500 meters deep underground, and it takes more than half an hour to get down to the first floor by mining car. The first layer is the underground substation, which used to require manual operation again and again to check whether the operation is normal, but after 5G network, line patrol robots can be used, machine patrol to find and eliminate faults, and the frequency of manual drilling is greatly reduced.

Tashan Coal Mine builds a unique internal navigation system in the mine based on 5G system. Because the underground is like an underground city, the area is large and the terrain is complex, and it is easy to get trapped in it without navigation. GPS and Beidou, which are generally used to build navigation systems, cannot cover signals underground. At this time, 5G will be able to show its full play, and the coal mine not only has a 5G navigation system, but also a 5G taxi system. For example, in the mining surface workers need to go to the well, in the underground is unable to walk up by themselves, then you can take out a customized version of 5G explosion-proof mobile phone to call a car, and then you can take off from the ground. After testing, the underground 5G network signal is strong, and it can brush Tiktok, B station, etc.

The mining face of the coal mine is a rectangular tunnel about 2 kilometers long and 300 meters wide. The tunnels are supported by hydraulic columns, and on either side are huge shears, constantly knocking coal off the stone walls and onto conveyors. There was coal up and down and left and right, and the rock formation was very loose, and every now and then coal would fall from the top. The mist is so thick that you can't see your fingers. Mine engineers, because close to the mining surface, coal mining process will have a large number of coal dust, coal powder permeated in the air, need to use equipment spray water mist to settle down the coal powder, otherwise it will be very dangerous. For mining operations in this visibility, 5G navigation plays a key role. Once the previous 4G fiber is broken, it is difficult to find the entire line inch by inch. After the application of 5G, only a few base station points can be checked, saving more than 70% of the workload. The application of 5G in coal mines is mainly that the mining surface equipment can operate automatically, without too much manual participation, which can greatly shorten the time for staff to go down the well, reduce the hardship and danger faced by workers, and greatly improve the efficiency of work.

5G applications have strengthened mobile communication networks and made up for the shortcomings of automated information systems. Although the application of 5G is still in the early exploration stage of the head enterprise, it has not penetrated into the daily industry. But like mobile communications itself, 5G must have a process of growth. At present, many people think that the role of 5G is only to improve the network speed, and there is no better life brought by wireless communication that people look forward to. In fact, this is not the same as decades ago when people asked what is the use of the Internet, what is the use of computers? It's the same truth. In addition to bringing a more extreme experience and greater capacity, 5G will also open the era of the Internet of Things and penetrate into various industries. The application of 5G will imperceptibly change people's production and life. However, only the demand is not enough, we need to develop application scenarios, open up the upstream and downstream core technology, do a good job in marketing, and solve the social problems that may be caused by new technologies, than the research of AR, VR applications, mature robot networks, so that fully automatic production enterprises are more and more appearing in China.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology jointly issued the 5G Application "Sail" Action Plan (2021-2023) with nine departments including the Central Network Information Office and the Development and Reform Commission, which clarified the development direction of 5G application in key industries in the next three years from three aspects: consumer (to C), industry (to B) and government (to G). We will vigorously promote 5G to empower thousands of industries. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has compiled and issued the Notice on Promoting the Accelerated Development of 5G, the Action Plan for the Coordinated Development of Double Gigabit Networks (2021-2023), and the Notice of the General Office of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on issuing the "5G+ Industrial Internet" 512 Project Promotion Plan, strengthening policy guidance and support from the aspects of network construction and application scenarios. Guide all parties to work together to promote the development of 5G applications. According to statistics from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, there are more than 10,000 5G application innovation cases in the country, covering 22 important industries of the national economy. For the three major areas of information consumption, the real economy, and people's livelihood services, the 5G application of 15 industries is becoming the focus of relevant ministries and local governments during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period.