23. March 2023
The Center Construction Robotics has joined the 5G Industry Campus Europe and is testing the performance of 5G for the construction site.
With the relocation from Campus West to Campus Melaten of RWTH Aachen University, the Center Construction Robotics now benefits from access to the 5G network from the 5G Industry Campus Europe and provides construction research with new questions and insights via the connection to 5G technology.
“The 5G technology enables us to work on the most exciting research projects in the construction industry in Europe, here at the RWTH Aachen University campus. In collaboration with our colleagues from the manufacturing industry, we will benefit from their knowledge gained in recent years at the 5G Industry Campus Europe and, for the first time, we will be able to gain cross-trade insights into the use of 5G on the construction site together with our industrial partners from the construction industry,” says Sigrid Brell-Cokcan from the Chair of Individualized Production, who is the scientific director of the new projects at the Center Construction Robotics.
The high transmission rates of 5G improve communication efficiency and enable real-time communication of machines and IoT devices due to lower latency, and provide a faster exchange for partners involved in construction to further explore digitalization and automation on the construction site. The first 5G project to be carried out on the reference site by Center Construction Robotics is the sovereign-funded #5G.NAMICO project.
Last fall, the reference construction site – which is unique in Europe – moved from Campus West to Campus Melaten at RWTH Aachen University. The research team from industry and academia has now completed the installation of the antennas and fiber optic cables. The next step will be to install and test measuring equipment at the crane and other locations. Among other things, the performance of the 5G network will be tested here. The latency and bandwidth will be measured, as will the reliability and performance of the data transmission.
The #5G.NAMICO (Networked, Adaptive Mining, and Construction) project is investigating how the 5G mobile communications standard can be used in the construction and mining industries. While the industrial use of 5G has so far been limited mainly to industrial production, 5G.NAMICO will transfer the knowledge already gained to the construction and mining industries.
The project is funded by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Innovation, Digitalization and Energy of North Rhine-Westphalia (MWIDE) and led by the Fraunhofer IPT. The research project is being carried out by the university institutes MRE (Institute of Mineral Resources Engineering) and IP (Chair of Individualized Production) at RWTH Aachen University. The development and evaluation of the construction site use case are coordinated by the CCR.
Project partners
CCR, IP RWTH Aachen, Fraunhofer IPT, MRE RWTH, Nerospec
Associated partners
Kabelwerk Eupen AG, Ericsson GmbH, GHH Fahrzeuge GmbH, BAT Bergbau Service GmbH, BROKK DA GmbH, Liebherr-Werk Biberach GmbH, PORR AG and LEONHARD WEISS GmbH & Co. KG.
Project executing organization
PTJ – Projektträger Jülich, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH