T2 Title: 5G and Beyond for Robotics and Automation: Challenges and Opportunities

Organizer: Zhibo Pang
Organizer: Guodong Zhao
Organizer: Emma Li

Abstract: Robotics and automation technologies have extensively developed in the past decades, where advanced robots have been widely used in industry, space exploration, etc. However, remotely operating robots and machines via communication networks still lag behind, where most workers in current pandemic cannot remotely carry out manufacturing and industrial tasks. In this tutorial, we will discuss fundamental technical challenges and potential solutions on teleoperation, which would enable people to remotely operate robots/machines. Specifically, we start from industrial perspective and introduce the basic requirements of wireless communications in Industry 4.0 and remote healthcare, where specific robotic use cases will be provided. Then, from academic perspective, we review the recent advances of Ultra-Reliable and Low-Latency Communications (URLLC) in 5G and discuss the challenges of supporting robotics and automation in 5G and beyond. In particular, we will provide the in-depth discussion of communication control co-design, where AI and digital twin are used to decouple the control loop between operator and robot. As a result, latency, reliable and scalability issues are excepted to be addressed. Finally, we discuss the security issue and solutions, which affect operation safety in robotics and automation.

 

Bio: Dr. Zhibo Pang (M’13, SM’15) received MBA in Innovation and Growth from University of Turku in 2012 and PhD in Electronic and Computer Systems from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in 2013. He is currently a Senior Principal Scientist at ABB Corporate Research Sweden, Adjunct Professor at University of Sydney, and Affiliated Faculty and PhD Supervisor at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH). Before joined ABB, he was co-founder and CTO of startups such as Ambigua Medito AB.

He is a Senior Member of IEEE and Co-Chair of the Technical Committee on Industrial Informatics. He is Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics, and IEEE Journal of Emerging and Selected Topics in Industrial Electronics, and was Guest Editor of Proceedings of the IEEE, IEEE Internet of Things Journal, and IEEE Reviews in Biomedical Engineering, etc. He was Invited Speaker at the Gordon Research Conference on Advanced Health Informatics (AHI2018), and General Chair of IEEE ES2017 and General Co-Chair of IEEE WFCS2021. He was awarded the “2016 Inventor of the Year Award” and “2018 Inventor of the Year Award” by ABB Corporate Research Sweden.

He has been working on high performance wireless communications (WirelessHP) for critical control systems with microsecond level packet transmission time and 10e-6 level packet error rate which is 20+ times beyond the start-of-the-art industrial wireless solutions. Another ongoing effort from him is on disruptive communication and computing solution for future mobile robotics in manufacturing and service scenarios.

 

Bio: Dr. Guodong Zhao (SM’16) received his Ph.D. Degree from Beihang University, Beijing, China, in 2011. He visited the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, in 2012-2013, and Lehigh University, USA, in 2016. Now, he is a lecturer at University of Glasgow, UK and a member of Scotland 5G Centre, UK. His current research interests are within the areas of wireless communications and robotics. He published over 50 papers in IEEE journals and conferences. In 2012, he received the best paper award from IEEE Global Telecommunication Conference (Globecom 2012) and the best Ph.D. thesis award from Beihang University. He served as a TPC at many international conferences, e.g., ICC and VTC. He also served as a reviewer in many IEEE transactions, e.g., IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing and IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications.

 

Bio: Dr. Emma Li received her Ph.D. Degrees in Electrical Engineering from University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC) in 2011. She visited Lehigh University, PA, USA, in 2016. In 2011-2019, she worked as an assistant/associate professor with the School of Automation Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC). Now she is a senior lecturer at Northumbria University Newcastle, UK. Her current research interests are within the areas of 5G and 6G communications.