Simply put, what 5G cellular does for wide-area access, Wi-FI 6 does for local access. Each Wi-Fi 6 access point reaches farther and covers a greater area, and can support many more devices at once. Wi-Fi 6 also delivers a dramatic boost in speed, plus a 50% improvement in battery life, a 4x increase in network capacity, and a 2x increase in bandwidth over previous generations of Wi-Fi. When it comes to Industry 4.0 use cases, there are four Wi-Fi 6 features that are particularly relevant:
In part 1, Peter Raggam talks about how wireless connections enhance industrial operations.
A power-efficient scheduling scheme, called Target Wake Time (TWT), lets a Wi-FI 6 access oint schedule the wake time for each client, based on individual device requirements and expected traffic activity. That helps extend battery life in a variety of IoT sensors, and enables more flexible placement of condition-monitoring devices. The result is more reliable inputs, the ability to connect previously unconnected machinery, and better energy management in power-sensitive applications.
AR applications, headsets, and smart glasses enable a variety of new ways to get information and interact with data. Developers can explore 3D designs before they’re built, maintenance crews have hands-free access to more advanced diagnostics and repair instructions, warehouse workers can locate items faster, and training sessions can provide real-world experience while keeping people safe. Wi-Fi 6 delivers the necessary latency, as well as the robustness and reliability, needed to supply AR use cases with video, voice, and real-time data visualizations.
Wi-Fi 6 provides network access using Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access (OFDMA), which lets multiple users, with varying bandwidth needs, use the channel simultaneously. OFDMA means Wi-FI 6 supports more deterministic industrial networking performance than ever before, ensuring much higher Quality of Service (QoS) than with previous Wi-FI standards. More efficient resource management also leads to more reliable performance at all times, particularly as more devices are connected, so every device, be it a tiny sensor or a fully automated robot, benefits from faster, more efficient service.
Wi-Fi 6 uses a transmission technique, called beamforming, to create a faster, more reliable connection. Transmit beamforming enables higher data rates at a given range, making it possible to accommodate more devices on the network at once. Transmit beamforming is already part of Wi-Fi, but Wi-FI 6 increases the number of beamforming streams from four to eight, and as a result substantially increases network range, throughput, and capacity. An industrial deployment can expand to accommodate more devices while maintaining reliable connectivity.
As in the home and the enterprise, industrial environments need to expand their support for traditional Wi-Fi applications, especially internet access for mobile and computing devices. Across the board, more people are using more devices to access more data, and industrial applications need to address this. The added capacity and bandwidth of Wi-FI 6 makes it a compelling upgrade on these grounds alone.
At the same time, though, Wi-FI 6 can bring the added benefit of enabling Industry 4.0 use cases that need a robust, reliable, secure, and flexible Wi-Fi infrastructure. That includes things like production lines that are more automated and flexible, Real-Time Location Services (RTLS), condition monitoring, robotics, wearables, AR, and safety applications.
Ultimately, Wi-Fi 6 and the opening of the 6-GHz band for Wi-Fi 6E presents an enormous opportunity for Wi-Fi to provide low-latency, high-performance indoor connectivity in dense industrial environments. Combine this with lower infrastructure costs, as well as near universal coverage, and Wi-Fi 6 becomes an even more compelling option Industry 4.0 use cases. What’s more, Wi-Fi 6 is a cost-effective complement and support technology for services running over 5G, so industrial applications can extend in-place 5G services by adding Wi-Fi 6 for indoor operation.
At NXP, our engineering teams are optimizing Wi-FI 6 to ensure robust, high-QoS, industrial-grade network performance for a variety of mission-critical applications. We offer high-performance solutions alongside out IoT chipsets, to provide connectivity on both the access and client side.
We’ve also optimized Wi-Fi 6 for battery-powered operation, with solutions that enable a more than 50% reduction in standby power compared to previous generations of Wi-Fi. We increase flexibility by adding Bluetooth 5.1 functionality to Wi-Fi 6 operation. Careful integration saves on power here, too, since the onboard Bluetooth radios use ultra-low-power communication for their interactions
NXP offers one of the broadest wireless portfolios in the industry, and our early success with Wi-Fi 6 shows just how committed we are to creating a connected world that anticipates and automates.
To learn more about our Wi-Fi 6 solutions, www.nxp.com/wifi6
Peter is Wireless Connectivity Marketing Manager at NXP Semiconductors. Responsible for driving the company’s Industrial segment as part of the Connected IOT Business, Peter is an industry veteran with over 25 years in the semiconductor market.
