Smart Industry 1/2019

omy and a leap forward in network
efficiency – building on the currently
deployed LTE macro network infrastructure
that provides global coverage
and capacity for consumers and
businesses, and an increasing number
of simple machines and sensors today.
Are there still challenges in the development
of the fifth mobile network
generation?
While we have the first 5G products
for enhanced mobile broadband available
today, continued innovations are
needed to achieve lower costs, higher
throughput, and new levels of dynamism
and automation. There are also
important challenges to realize new
5G wireless solutions that have the
same high reliability and the same
low latency as the cables that connect
robots and control servers in factories
today. At Bell Labs, we are working
with manufacturing industry partners
to pioneer novel solutions in all these
dimensions. As one example, we have
recently demonstrated, for the first
time, the control of a robot with a millisecond
response time over a 5G-type
wireless connection.
And can you imagine a sixth generation
– again with new features never
seen before?
We have seen a new generation of a
mobile network about every decade
and this will be no different after 5G.
In the course of the next ten years
there will be so many innovations in
technology, architecture, and applications
that it is hard to predict what 6G
will look like. But there are many new
technologies like terahertz transmission
for hyper-local, hypercapacity,
dynamic, self-coding mesh networks
that are self-deploying and self-optimizing;
and new “body area,” or in vivo,
networks, as well as, of course, extraterrestrial
networks.
What are the challenges in the field
of Internet of Things (IoT) and what
further research and development is
required to interconnect billions of
devices?
As already mentioned, wireless connections
with millisecond latency and
ultra-reliability will be key for critical
IoT applications, like control of vehicles
or robots. Such applications
also require very accurate localization
methods. We need highly energyefficient
wireless solutions for sensors
and other devices that need to operate
for ten years on a single battery
charge or solar power – drop and forget.
We expect a 100 times increase
in the number of devices and, hence,
need new systems that can handle
the massive scale of connections with
dynamic scaling, adaptation, and automation.
Do you believe in the realization of
fully autonomous vehicles on the
road, rail, and in the air?
I believe that this will happen, first
in places where well-organized “platoons”
can form, for example on highways
(trucks and cars), in rail systems
and in shipping, and aerial systems
(drones). For such systems, the number
of variables and scenarios that
need to be assessed, predicted, and
managed are fewer, and the interworking
with legacy [current] vehicles
minimized.
Although a great deal of progress has
been made in autonomous systems, a
lot more innovation is required until
these systems are truly autonomous,
as human tolerance for machine errors
and accidents will be far lower than for
the equivalent human control. We believe
that private industrial networks
will be one of the first areas to adopt
Marcus Weldon
awards the 2017
Bell Labs Prize
to Kaushik Sengupta,
assistant professor in
electrical engineering
at Princeton
University.
many autonomous technologies, given
the well-defined environments in
which they operate. For example, we
are currently working on innovative
solutions to enable autonomous operation
of trucks in mines and cranes
in harbors, as well as robotic systems
inside warehouses and factories.
Bell Labs created eight Nobel Prize
winners in the past. Why did you
found the new Bell Labs Prize for
Innovation in Information and Communications
Networking?
We originated the Bell Labs Prize to attract
researchers across the world and
to allow them to collaborate with Bell
Labs on new disruptive innovations.
The goal was not only to connect with
the largest possible pool of innovators
but also to give them the benefit
of the unique capabilities in Bell Labs
to help realize their ideas. In the five
years since we launched the prize, we
have seen over a thousand proposals
which have led to collaborations
with more than a hundred leading
researchers, which, in turn, has led to
many new game-changing innovations
that are currently in the works,
or have recently been incorporated
into our products or research projects.
Are you planning another Bell Labs
Innovation Day here in Germany?
Yes, absolutely. We are very much
looking forward to hosting our annual
Innovation Day in Stuttgart in November.
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