China Telecom Deploys 5G+Industrial Internet to Promote High-Quality Development

New infrastructure construction is considered to play a significant role in promoting high-quality social and economic development.

The main parts of new infrastructure construction, 5G technology, the industrial internet and artificial intelligence (AI) caught a lot of attention and were real highlights during the two sessions.

They were also stressed in this year's government work report as a hot issue for NPC deputies and CPPCC members from the science and technology field.

Generally speaking, these new technologies will be a catalyst for the high-quality development of traditional industries and upgrading of traditional enterprises. China Telecommunications Corporation (China Telecom) is now developing 5G plus industrial internet with enterprises in a variety of industrial fields to make full use of the emerging technology.

World's first end-to-end application of super uplink

Anhui Conch Group Co., Ltd (Conch) is a world-leading concrete supplier and mining is a fundamental procedure of concrete production.

In March 2020, China Telecom and Huawei succeeded in providing 5G-based super uplink network service to the company, which was the first application of its kind.

With support of the 5G super uplink and edge cloud service, 4K high-definition videos filmed by drones were sent to the AI image identification system safely, quickly and reliably. Thus the system was able to give warnings of mining explosions after the precise real-time identifications.

The 5G plus AI technology has also been used to detect cracks in the cement outer wall of a warehouse, which improves detection ability including time required for a warning.

According to a staff member of the Conch, routine inspections carried on by employees, particularly in extreme weather, indicated that more attentive examinations had to be done. Thanks to 5G and AI, however, inspectors do not need to go outside anymore, which reduces their workload and safety risks.

All-round verification proved that the upload speed can increase by 20 to 60 percent in the areas' new base stations. In limestone mining areas with complicated landforms, internet can already effectively cover the mining roads and operation sites and meet the demands for transmittal of HD videos and remote control without the need to build new 5G base stations.

5G network also plays a role in improving flexibility of production lines and reducing working time of staff members in excessive dust conditions in the pre-blending workshop.

At the same time it strengthened the uplink technology, China Telecom also built a special cloud platform for Conch.

Take the video monitoring platform as an example. Videos filmed by more than 30,000 cameras in different subsidiaries of Conch are all uploaded on the same platform and resources are managed and allocated together.

At present, China Telecom is working on a new system for Conch to be used for industrial control, AI interface operation, integrating third-party management Apps and an AI integration platform.

The new system is expected to be completed in the third quarter of this year.

It's worth mentioning that Conch and China Telecom in Anhui province signed an agreement to launch a 5G industrial internet laboratory on May 21. The two sides will make full use of their advantages and cooperate in such matters as edging computing, network slicing, unmanned driving and AI.

Unmanned vehicle with heaviest load in China's metallurgy industry

Baoshan Iron & Steel Co., Ltd and China Telecom jointly developed a 5G industrial internet-based unmanned heavy duty automobile which has the heaviest load capacity for its kind in China.

The vehicle is now in operation 24/7 at a logistics smart garage of Baoshan base in Shanghai. The mode integrates a 5G-based AGV, an unmanned warehouse and an unmanned port. It avoids accidents caused by operating error, lowers costs and greatly improves working efficiency.

According to Xu Yonggang, chief customer manager of China Telecom's subsidiary in Shanghai, the 5G internet provided by China Telecom supports navigation service for the unmanned vehicle, which lowers operation costs and improves transport efficiency.

He added that the unmanned working environment reduces the manager number from 130 to 30, which shows the advantage of the 5G industrial internet. In the future, the number of unmanned vehicles in the base will exceed 130.

China Telecom and Baosteel Co., Ltd are also seeking cooperation in other fields. For example, to control and position railway locomotives with 5G internet in complicated environments and to protect workers by reducing thermal losses and increasing use of 5G-AI robots in steel workshops in areas with high temperature, excessive dust, loud noise and high radiation.

China's first 5G+MEC smart workshop

Upon entering the low-voltage apparatus digital workshop of CHINT in East China's Zhejiang province, flexible mechanical arms, welding robots and automatic packing machines are immediately seen hard at work.

It's the first 5G plus MEC edge computing smart workshop in China in which all machines are controlled by 5G internet.

The workshop was initiated in 2019 by CHINT and China Telecom in response to such problems as high costs, poor internet coverage, low security and long delay in digitalization of traditional industrial workshops.

The smart workshop is now testing the private enterprise 5G network and cloud-based AGV vehicles and will next work on development of flexible manufacturing and 5G data collection.

In the future, varieties of production systems will be connected to the MEC platform based on the edge computing technology. Data will then be saved, distributed and analyzed through the system with low delay, which will greatly promote production efficiency.

The projects mentioned above are just some of the contributions brought by the 5G plus industrial internet. China Telecom is now working on more than 300 such programs and it is expected in the future to rely on its cloud integration to develop all industries through 5G, cloud computing, big data and AI.

(Executive editor: Wang Ruoting)