Huawei, Haier, China Mobile unveil 5G solutions for smart manufacturing

New Delhi: With the support from Huawei and China Mobile, consumer electronics producer Haier on Monday announced that it has successfully applied innovative manufacturing solutions combining 5G as well as mobile edge computing in its smart factories.

Developed at the joint-innovation base established in February, the solutions integrate 5G edge computing with artificial intelligence and particularly machine vision in manufacturing environments.

Haier has launched the technologies at seven smart factories in China, and plans to expand the implementation at 20 factories by the end of 2022.

Huawei is expected to help Haier deploy the 5G solutions and transform about 100 of its manufacturing facilities globally within five years. The three also plan to offer the technologies to other leading manufacturers in China and abroad.

5G aims to provide manufacturers with a lot of bandwidth -- up to 20GBps -- and latencies as low as 1 millisecond.

Deployed on a 5G-enabled production line, machine vision aims to save manufacturers costs by rapidly performing QC checks with over 99 per cent accuracy, at least 10 per cent more accurate than without the function.

The three partners also developed technologies to boost site and staff safety. Unlike traditional video surveillance systems that only have a recording function, AI-surveillance can automatically create alarms in real time when it detects anomalies on the factory floor. The technology can identify non-authorized individuals, process safety violations, and workers who aren't where they should be.