Security and standardisation will be key in Industrial IoT Tuesday, 05 January 2016

As Industry 4.0 enters mass commercialisation, the issues of security and standardisation will prompt the emergence of new technologies in the telecommunications space, claims market analysts.

In countries around the world, Industry 4.0 (also known as digital manufacturing or the Industrial Internet of Things) is still in the exploration stage, with the market on the cusp of the mass commercialisation of solutions and products.

Market analysts at TrendForce say companies from diverse sectors are now trying to seize opportunities related to smart manufacturing. These opportunities include collaborative robots and Internet-connected machine tools as prime examples.

Many of these offerings will become commercially available in 2016. But alongside these smart manufacturing solutions, standardisation and security of Internet connections will become a key development issue.

To deal with security and standardisation, telecommunications and networking equipment suppliers will play a major role in driving the transformation of industries.

In the field of smart manufacturing, collaborative robots and Internet-connected machine tools are two major product groups that are currently undergoing commercialisation.

Already, the first collaborative robots are already available on the market, with global manufacturers providing a range of assembly robot solutions.

These include ABB’s dual-arm collaborative robot, YuMi; KUKA’s LBR iiwa; the CR-35iA from Japanese industrial robot maker FANUC, and Motoman-HC 10 from Yaskawa.

These robots are designed to work alongside people. Besides having fewer sharp edges on their bodies, they will also stop or slow down when they come into contact with human operators, ensuring maximum safety while allowing productive collaboration within the same environment.

Internally, collaborative robots are equipped with visual tracking systems, and users are able to teach them to perform actions by moving their arms. Through direct physical guidance, the robots will memorise pathways and procedures so that they cannot just work with people, but also independently or with another robot if they also feature intelligent technologies.

In terms of Internet-connected machine tools, machine-tool makers like DMG Mori Seiki, Yamazaki Mazak and Okuma have CNC systems and machine tools with Internet connection capability. These types of solutions allow for the remote control of equipment’s operation.

As connected robots and CNC systems continue to proliferate, standardisation of communications protocols, and security of connections will continue growing as crucial issues that will continue to play a critical role in the development and commercialisation of these products.