Review of 5G capabilities for smart manufacturing

5G has been defined to address new use cases beyond consumer-focused mobile broadband services. In particular industrial use cases, for example in smart manufacturing, have been addressed in the 5G standardization, so that 5G can support industrial IoT services and wireless industrial networking. To this end, 5G needs to integrate with the industrial network based on Ethernet and TSN. 5G can create new opportunities for smart manufacturing by enabling flexibility and increasing the automation in the production. This paper provides an overview of the use cases and requirements for smart manufacturing that can be addressed with 5G and which are validated in three industrial 5G trial systems. The capabilities of 5G are described for providing non-public networks that support industrial LAN services based on Ethernet and TSN. The 5G radio access network functionality is described and discussed for practical deployments. The paper provides an overview of the current state-of-the-art of using 5G for smart manufacturing.