Are You Ready for World of Sensors

Ryan Lui
Ryan Lui
Nov 8 · 4 min read

What do millions devices per square kilometer mean

The unique combination of ultra-high speed connectivity (up to 10Gbps), ultra-low latency (less than 1–5 milliseconds), and ultra-capacity (million devices per square kilometer) with other next-generation technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), network slicing and edge computing will spur innovation across many industries enabling enterprise to mobilize their workforces, shape their supply chain, automate business process and support new applications such as real-time augmented reality, connected cars and remote surgery.

5G lets more devices, IoT sensors and industrial equipment go online with negligible latency without slowing everything down but what do millions devices per square kilometer mean.


7x safer transportation with sensor system

Automotive has been one of the most visible and familiar use cases for 5G such as fleet management, autonomous driving and traffic management. Our cars have been connected for years, currently the average number of sensors in a vehicle is around 60–100 for a wide variety of applications such as engine operation, tire pressure monitoring, emission controls and driver assistant.

A typical Tesla model equipped with 8 surround cameras provide 360 degrees of visibility, 12 ultrasonic sensors and forward-facing radar together with advanced hardware capable of providing Autopilot features. According to Tesla Vehicle Safety Report 2019, one accident had been registered for every 4.34 million miles driven in which drivers had Autopilot engaged comparing with one accident registered for every 1.82 million miles driven without Autopilot and active safety features. While NHTSA reported that there is an automobile crash every 490,000 miles in United States.

Industry would like to take it further, with advanced sensor system affixed to every vehicle include LIDAR, radar, 360-degree cameras and various supplemental sensors, Waymo has now driven 10 millions of miles in real world and 10 billion of miles in simulation by far longer than anyone else in autonomous driving industry covering a wide variety of urban and suburban environments during day and night, dawn and dusk, as well as sunshine and snow, which is more than every human combined.

In-vehicle sensor is only part of the story. Given the impact of urbanization, many cities around the world are facing an uncontrolled growth in traffic volume and road network complexity causing serious problems such as increase of CO2 emissions and accidents, governments worldwide constantly innovating transportation infrastructure with in-road sensors, including road surface condition sensor, inductive loop detector, video camera, to name a few, collecting and analyzing traffic data in real-time to improve transportation network and incidents handling efficiency.

Thanks to the 5G ultra-capacity characteristic, millions of sensors make their way into transportation infrastructure including both in-vehicle and in-road sensors, urban mobility will be revolutionized to a great extent. Imagine how smart will future transportation be.


1% factory productivity boost with thousands sensors

The unique combination of 5G and next generation technologies will spur innovation across many industries, the most lucrative space is perhaps in manufacturing. The UK government-backed Worcestershire 5G Consortium working with Worcester Bosch to deploy thousands of sensors together with 5G technology on the factory floor with the aim to improve factory output and assist it in scoping out preventive maintenance measures through real-time feedback whilst also using data analytics to predict any potential failures.

For instance, Borgward create an extremely flexible and versatile manufacturing process that can quickly respond to changing market developments. On the area of more than 110 million square meters in China, it equipped with 8 flexible production lines using over 600 robots plus array of sensors for the efficient assembly of products such as engine, cylinder heads, axles and steering systems. The flexible facility is capable of switching production from one product to another in 3 minutes enabling the company to keep up with changing customer demand.

Imagine how smart will future factory be using millions sensors per square kilometer on factory floor along with 5G and other emerging technologies.


800 million packages distributed with robots in a day

Enterprise is increasingly moving toward the use of robots in its warehouses for packing, distribution, delivery and other inventory management tasks. By placing network of sensors on everything in the warehouse from the products to the robots, parcel and inventory can be monitored in real time, from the time an order is placed to the time it gets package to customer.

On 2018 Double 11 shopping festival in China, Alibaba processed over 800 million packages, with the help from automated guided vehicles on warehouse floor, which is 8 times more than 5 years ago. For instance, a 30 square kilometers warehouse of Alibaba in Wuxi, a city in the east of China, employs almost 800 automated guided vehicles which automatically move parcels around warehouse.

To stay competitive enterprises are looking to 5G and other digital technologies to make warehouse operations far more efficient and agile. Image how will future warehouse be with utlra-capacity 5G characteristic.


There’s always a but…

Sensors generate huge amounts of data, a new forecast from IDC estimates that there will be 41.6 billion connected devices generating 79.4 zettabytes of data in 2025. For instance a F1 formula car generates approximately 80 gigabytes of data per race from 280–300 sensors that report on vehicle performance and the inputs of the driver in real time.

Sensor is nothing if we could not extract useful information and turn into valuable insight. The real advantage and at the same time the greatest challenge is going to come from using the data and getting value from the information your are collecting from billion of sensors.

Enterprise needs to weigh in on what data really matters and tap into that data to extract useful information and insight using next generation technologies such as machine learning and data analytics.

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