Karin Loidl: 0:03

What is an advantage of 5g is that it's developed as mobile communication network so that the devices are mobile. It's originated in the 5g system or the mobile communication system. This is different to wifi. Wifi was not designed for fast moving objects. And if you look on, especially on supply chains, you have most time moving objects, sometimes very fast moving objects

Tom Raftery: 0:29

Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever you are in the world. This is the digital supply chain podcast. The number one podcast, focusing on the digitization of supply chain. And I'm your host global vice-president at SAP Tom Raftery. Hi everyone. Welcome to the digital supply chain podcast. My name is Tom Raftery with SAP and with me on the show today, I have my special guest Karin. Karin welcome to the podcast. Would you like to introduce yourself?

Karin Loidl: 0:56

Yes. Thank you, Tom Yeah, it's a pleasure to be here and some words about myself. I'm Karin Loidl working at Fraunhofer IS as a technology advisor in the area of wireless networks and positioning. And I also an NS, a one delegate to the three GDPP. So where we collect and bring in all the requirements on the 5g system.

Tom Raftery: 1:15

So Karin, for people who might be unaware, can you tell us about the Fraunhofer Institute?

Karin Loidl: 1:20

Yes. So the Fraunhofer Institute is, as I'm working for is the biggest for Fraunhofer Institute in the whole organization. So the Fraunhofer , and this is the worldwide biggest applied research organization. So we are around, 30,000 employees. And we are really doing applied research. I think in each area you can think about and our Institute is in Berg and fun. And our division is focusing very on networks and positioning like GPS, but also about 5g, local area networks, all of that stuff. So it's very high tech organization working for companies and also for the states.

Tom Raftery: 1:58

Okay. Superb, and 5g. We've heard a lot about, it's starting to be rolled out. Now, if I take a look at my phone here, I can see it's got a 5g logo on it so it is connected to a local 5g network, but this is the supply chain podcast. So what relevance does 5g have for supply chains? Or maybe, maybe start by just giving us a little bit about 5g itself, what it is, and then we can talk about its applicability for supply chains.

Karin Loidl: 2:24

Yeah, I think, if I think about of supply. One word before is it's. It really is about transparency. So 5g is enabling technology in mind, a few on the supply chain. If you look on 5g itself, like you said, on your phone, you have 5g logo. So this means you have the first generation of 5g available. It's normally release 15 or 16 it switches in the rollout. So this 5g itself is done in many releases. So within standardization, we currently working on the lease uh, 17, 18, and 19. And this is also becoming the very interesting releases because they are focusing on all this industrial application also on supply chain applications. So 5g is also one of the first generations where really the industry brought in their requirement directly in standardization. So especially we have really had use cases on supply chain like IOT devices going worldwide on containers. How long have to survive for a battery? How high has to be the accuracy of this positioning on such an IOT device? So this will become very interesting, special for supply chain, people to have 5g within the next years and years.

Tom Raftery: 3:35

Okay. And you, you said we're on release about 15 at the moment. And you're currently working on, I think you said 17, 18, 19. What, and I assume there would be further and further releases over the coming years. What improvements? I assume it's improvements. You're your hardly disproving it as we go along. What improvements are, are you building into the standards as we go from release 15 to 19 to 29 to 59, whatever it is.

Karin Loidl: 4:01

Yeah. I think what is well known also to the public is this enhanced mobile broadband so that we have an increased data rate, but what is for the professional users more important is that we have this massive machine time communication so that we have really a increased number of IT devices we can connect to the network. So it's a 1 million devices in one square kilometers. So this is really improvement. Another thing is this ultra-reliable, low latency communication so that you really have a reliable network, reliable communication. And also in some cases, if you speak alike about autonomous driving this low latency, Also, if you think about robots and all that things. So these are two parts which come in with the releases 17 and 18, and also the positioning I mentioned before. Like if you have inter-logistic processes you have no GPS available. It's very important to have also in your company, in your, on the back front effect side, really a clear overview where your goods, where your parts and this can be also handled in two, three years by 5g.

Tom Raftery: 5:04

Oh, wow. And would that work for indoor positioning as well as outdoor.

Karin Loidl: 5:09

It can be done as outdoor but other, there is GPS available. So this is something where I would say, use GPS if it is available, but 5g can also handle it with a low accuracy around 10 meters and 15 meters. It's better than in the past but in the indoor, it really becomes interesting because we are reaching this area. We have done many projects together with car manufacturers, with healthcare sites this 20 to 30 centimeters, which is sort of target for higher high accuracy, especially also for logistic processes to really know, is there something on the production side, especially on this place where I need it, and this is what we are targeting for the release 18, but still we have with the first, I think re 17 this one meter accuracy, which is still a very good accuracy for indoor and really helps in many process.

Tom Raftery: 5:59

Fantastic. And what's the kind of timeline for those releases 17 and 18 and 19 that you talked about?

Karin Loidl: 6:05

Yeah. It's a little bit delayed to the pandemic situation. All of that. Normally if we work in the standardization, it takes one, one and a half year to add it to have a commercially available. If we look, I would say on, on the release 17th, which will be the first industrial real industrial release, which has all this features like the high accurate positioning on board 25 and further. So we have first tries, I think 24, but I think 25, there will be a wider roll out of this release.

Tom Raftery: 6:39

And to get access to this, you know, if I have a factory and I want to roll out version 17 on my factory floor, so that I've got the indoor positioning and stuff, what do I have to do to roll it out?

Karin Loidl: 6:55

There are different ways to get 5g on your factory site. The one is you can use the public network when, if it's available you, then you depend on the release, which is in the public network available and another thing is that you can build up your own private campus non-public networks. There are different words on the market for the same thing. This also beside that normally have a chance to influence what features are on board in this network, is that the security is on a higher level because you really take care, which can use the network, which one can use the network or which device can use the network or not. So this are the two ways use the public network or slice in the public network or build up your own private campus network. And especially if it is , on cases like ultra-reliable or latency communication or high precise positioning. Your own networks will bring more features or higher features in this area because you really can design it on this target to have this low latency communication, for example.

Tom Raftery: 7:55

Okay. And then if I have that on version 17, if I want to upgrade to version 18 a few years later, does that mean for my private network I have to buy a whole new set of equipment?

Karin Loidl: 8:09

No. Normally you can upgrade systems it's depending on your supplier, how many upgrades you can do? I think it's the same you know it from other software and it's also as 5g system depends on the software and on the hardware. So if there's a switch in the frequencies, you have to change the hardware because the hardware cannot only handle special way of frequencies because it depends on hardware. What's also interesting. I think it's ongoing is this open run development. So it's that you have, this defined interfaces so that you really can bring in equipment from different suppliers. This also little bit change the market in the next years and especially as we have this bringing together of OT and IT on manufacturing side, on other sites. This will also help, because it's a little bit more IT conform I would say than it is in the past where the 5g or all this mobile communication systems are really for the communication experts world yeah, yeah,

Tom Raftery: 9:08

Okay, suburb and, you mentioned a device density of about a million devices per square kilometer and low latency. What would that be useful for? Can you give some kind of use cases that, that might you know, benefit.

Karin Loidl: 9:22

I think I've mentioned it before. I'm not sure if this transparency you need in the supply chain. It's nice if you have chemical sites, so already we have high value goods very sensitive to misuse handling it in the wrong way, having the wrong things beside each other, standing there you have a really high density of IT device, which will send your data temperature, which is the nearby goods standing on the side, which is perhaps not allowed. Then, if you also see you have perhaps your IT devices on your goods, on your products, you have IT devices, people carrying around with them. You have auto autonomous car, you have drones, and then you see it's coming more and more devices in a specific area. And this has to be handled by the system. And therefore this increase of number of devices, which can be handled is very helpful.

Tom Raftery: 10:12

Okay. Fantastic. So, you reckon that in a couple of years, time, pretty much all devices that are using IOT whether it's drones, whether it's sensors on manufacturing machines or things like that, they should all be using 5g because of the low latency and the high density of of sensors that can do that within a certain area.

Karin Loidl: 10:36

I'm not sure if they all have to use it, but I think it will be very helpful because in the past, over the, past 10, 15 years, I've had many projects, also the area of supply chains and the problems are the same. But the solutions have changed. And in the past there were a specific solution for a specific problem. And this also made it a problematic situation to have a low cost solution because it was specific for this problem. It has a not high amount of devices using it and I think with 5g also, we have to set as a multipurpose technology. You can use it in many use cases for different applications. This I think will bring low cost devices also within 5g. So I'm not sure if everybody has to use 5g, but I think it will become a technology which can used in many use cases. And. Perhaps it will become from the use case also business case. I think this is normal. The step of a new technology. You have many ideas, you try it, it works fine, but then it has also to work on the financial side of the project. And also if I'm more in research, I'm more interested on the technical part. I also know the business part also have to work so that this technology, which is nice, if you look on the feature also runs in the reality on a price level, which is acceptable for the market. Yeah, so I think this is one part also to think about.

Tom Raftery: 12:32

Okay. And if, again, if I have a manufacturing site that I want to connect up to devices and get information from sensors, what's the advantage of using 5g over, for example, wifi six the wifi six, the latest standard in wifi, very high throughput, very low latency, very high number of devices as well. Why would I go for one over the other?

Karin Loidl: 12:57

Yeah. I work in both areas, wifi and 5g. So I know the ones that this is the best, and this is the best, and this is good and this is not good. Both have their advantages. If I compare them, it's really for, if I look from the use case on the technology. And what is an advantage of 5g is that it's developed as mobile communication network so that the devices are mobile. It's originated in the 5g system or the mobile communication system. This is different to wifi. Wifi was not designed for fast moving objects. And if you look on, especially on supply chains, you have most time moving objects, sometimes very fast moving objects. That's really a problem with wifi in this case. Then 5g really, or mobile communication networks have fairly advantaged above wifi, but if you don't have this um, high level of requirements, if you say I only need a little bit of data transmission, from non-moving option or only my tablet, where I stand in a production, I think wifi is fine. We have also our own test bed. We have here running one of the biggest open hand 5g test beds. We have also wifi six built in. So it's really open that you use both technology. Also, if you have more installations, you have 5g still installed and you have, can I combine both systems? So there is not a only wifi or only 5g. Sometimes you combine it that you have areas where you, uh, use 5g for the whole area. You can use 5g also for the outdoor area and you have to think about that you have a complete connection, not only in the factory, also outside factory, because it's a global network and there are more and more roaming contracts. So you really can follow your object over the whole world. And then you also have this updated or more increased accuracy or latency if the object is on your production side, in your clinic what you can think also special areas also the ports. So this was came up over the last two, three years, they were one of the first users of 5g, but now they're really getting active because they really see this big advantage because this is also area where you have many obstacles. You have sometimes no connection to GPS wifi. Cannot, they're really fast, the autonomous the trucks and all on this area. And we have one first project in the north of Germany, with one big airport, one big port and special the positioning is also their key feature within 5g site is low latency and high data throughput. And this, I mentioned airports before but it's the same airports. It's the same. They you have all this cargo flight cargo and also to track just things and also to track it with a higher accuracy in a lower latency. If they're on the airport field, you can detect if there's an intrusion, something like that. And this is what I mentioned before. It is. With this multipurpose technology. We have had hundreds of use cases during the standardization or what 5g should handle, and it was all work to break it down to technical features. This was interested. You start with hundreds of use cases and at the end there are 20, 30 features, but if you have the features on the network and the 5g, you can bring it up to this hundreds of use cases. This is what I mentioned. So you can step from the port to the airport, to the manufacturing side to container on a ship. Then it has different needs, but like this example on a ship there's a work item within 5g that you have side to side communication as a link to side link communication. So from device to device, with not a connection to network and you know it from containers, sometimes you lose one or you don't can track the last one on the bottom of the ship because only the top one has a connection. And these are also use cases where you can connect all these containers by this side link communication.

Tom Raftery: 16:50

It's like a peer to peer network.

Karin Loidl: 16:52

Yeah, yeah. And this is also with, for the coming releases within 5g, it was started mainly by the automotive sector for the autonomous driving. This, that cars can connect themself and transfer data. But this is also an application features the same, but it also can be used, to connect the containers. And, yeah. So this is this this many applications which are possible with one technology.

Tom Raftery: 17:16

Fascinating fascinating. And, I mean, we've talked about shipping and planes in the, and the factories on the factory floor. I assume the indoor positioning could be used for things like safety worker safety as well. Would that be a good use case?

Karin Loidl: 17:31

Yeah. This is um, real use case where there's a high pressure to realize it on this floor. The factory or also on building sites that you really detect is a human inside, the danger area of a machine. If you are, autonomous object, they have many sensors on bot, but with 5g can do outside the sensors really say out there can become a situation which can become dangerous. Also, if the sensors don't say there is a human in front of you, so you can really look some minutes in front of a situation before it happens. If it happens also the sensors on board will help you. So this security is request every time get from the market. And I see the first projects using also 5g together with positioning, but also the sidelink communication and this overall communication to have this future view, what can happen if you have all this information?

Tom Raftery: 18:25

So in, in the prep call, you mentioned Karin that there are possible uses of 5g in the healthcare sector as well. Could you elaborate on some of those?

Karin Loidl: 18:33

Yes in the healthcare sector Uh, if you know a hospital, there are many logistic processes going on. It's medical devices who have to brought from one room to another. You have to look for them, you have to find them. The next thing is the blood bags that they're on the right way to the right patient. In the right temperature. So this is really where you have this IOT devices on board to track the transparency of the whole transportation from the temperature side, but also from the location side. And also medical transport within the clinic is something we really the trust. And this is very well organized, but we have this additional information via 5g network and an IT device really helps.

Tom Raftery: 19:13

Okay, fantastic. And you know, we were talking about 5g, but you know, 10 years ago we'd have been talking about 4g. So I assume there's a 6g and probably a seven and eight and 9g coming in the coming decades. What, what, what should we expect from 6g that we don't have in 5g?

Karin Loidl: 19:33

First you're right with this development. So I will work on 6g, beginning with next year. So what we expect is first the higher frequencies. So we will go in into terrahertz area at least a little bit lower than terrahertz, but this means a special part, we are working on the sensing so that you not only have the transmission of data via the network. So the dynamic safe, also sensors are a surface or something like this, so that you really can say, there is a human in front of me, not a wall. This is a information which you can get by this higher frequency transmissions. And it um, yeah a higher data throughput, all of that but what is interesting is that also the mindset is a little bit different. The 5g, it was really on the industrial usage, really the professional usage of 5g for mobile communication, 6g is going really in the direction of the humans. So how can mobile communication, support humans and like we mentioned before for security also, perhaps for health issues. We have had I say 20 years ago, all this body area network discussions and I think with 6g and this short range communication, which will also come with 6g, but high data rates, perhaps body area networks will come back and we get all this supportive devices nearer to our body and which help you help us in health issues. And also there will be very nice work on. I like this word metaverse, but this is still a little bit also 5g, but also to have a really nice visuals of people so that you don't have to travel that much. and the current situation. Yeah, I think it's very human centric to development on 6g and we really have to target to see how can the mobile communication support human also in their work life.

Tom Raftery: 21:24

Fantastic. Sounds really interesting. I can't wait, what kind of timeframe are we looking at for 6g just as a, as a matter of interest?.

Karin Loidl: 21:31

Yeah, I think our first presentation. I think we will see 28, 29, but this is research. So it's really to show what it canal, I think roll out commercial rollout, 2030, 2031. So this is little bit of timeframe and I also had this discussion. Oh, there are 6g we can stop 5g. No no, this is, also behalf of 4g 5g. They work together also, if you, like you said it on your mobile phone. If you have 5g on the radio, don't means that the network isn't 4g. So this is the same. You will see with 6g, 6g is a high frequency. So we have smaller clusters. So we will have, I think my prediction, 6g clusters within a 5g network, like we have now 5g cluster in a 4g network So it's a ongoing process uh, with new features. Also increased uh, new features is something was not possible before, but also that the performance itself will become better. And we had a nice discussion last week. Do we every time need assisted with more performances. Yes. This discussion is every time the same, because the, at the moment cannot predict what are the requirements in the future, but never the requirements decreased to every time increased and yeah. And there will be also more look on sustainability on power consumption. This is also becoming more and more important in the work on 5g. We've had one part I walked also on to make all this positioning on a low power um, way so that we really use, or we can run systems up to 10 years in IOT device. And in within five, six g as a higher demand on sustainability, we really looked at power consumption of the hardware of the search system itself after communication is really reduced and optimized. And I think this is also important within the development of the upcoming releases of 5g, but also within 6g.

Tom Raftery: 23:32

Fascinating. Fascinating. We are coming towards the end of the podcast now, Karin. Is there any question that I haven't asked that you wish I had, or is there any aspect of this we've not touched on that you think it's important for people to be aware of?

Karin Loidl: 23:46

Yeah, I think there's so much around 5g. I think we missed many things, but I would like to invite people who are not in touch with 5g now, really to test it. This is every time. My work also to say people, try it, read about it. Also, if you don't like to invest at a moment because it's the beginning of a technology. There are not so many end devices there. The prices are high. This will become better with the next years, but try to test it and we ourselves running a test, but it's an open test bed. And this is also a way where you can really experience 5g. You can bring in your own use cases. You can test, like we discussed it before. Is wifi better? Is any low power area network better solution, or is 5g the right technology for my use case. Get to experience, speak with other companies using 5g. This is normally I advise and I really would like to invite people to visit us in Germany, at least at clear Canterbury digital, because the 29th of September, we have an event here in our test bed it's the 5g connect and we have it also online available where you really can travel through the test, bed to many demonstrations from satellite communication via 5g, like, V2 X of vehicle to infrastructure, communication and simulation. So I think this is a very good way to experience by yourself what means 5g for a application.

Tom Raftery: 25:06

Okay, can you send me a a link for that for people to register? And I I'll put that in the show notes and that brings me to my final question. If people want to know more about yourself or about 5g or Fraunhofer or any of the things we discussed on the podcast today, where would you have me direct them?

Karin Loidl: 25:24

I will send you some links because they are very long. At least it's very easy because my name is unique as you have your, my name, like L O I D L and 5g, and you combine it, you'll find myself and all the activities of Fraunhofer so normally this is a very easy way to find our company sites and our research project we are working on.

Tom Raftery: 25:44

Perfect. Brilliant. Karin. That's been really interesting. Thanks a million for coming on the podcast today.

Karin Loidl: 25:49

Thank you very much was a pleasure.

Tom Raftery: 25:52

Okay, we've come to the end of the show. Thanks everyone for listening. If you'd like to know more about digital supply chains, head on over to sap.com/digital supply chain, or, or simply drop me an email to Tom dot Raftery @sap.com. If you like the show, please, don't forget to subscribe to it in your podcast application at choice to get new episodes, as soon as they are published. Also, please don't forget to rate and review the podcast. It really does help new people to find the show. Thanks, catch you all next time.