Tactile Internet in Future Industrial Automation Applications

Abstract

Industrial automation has gone through serious transformation from early years until now. Recently, it incorporated Internet, Internet of Things, cyber-physical systems and wired/wireless communication network, but all of these have certain limitations regarding latency, data rate, reliability and real-time connectivity that disenable future industrial applications. On the way of meeting the Industry 4.0 requirements, ultra-reliable and low latency communication networks should be used, and as a solution to this, Tactile Internet is recognized. Tactile Internet is envisioned to fully provide human-to-machine interaction as one of the ideas of smart manufacturing and smart factories. This paper deals with Tactile Internet characteristics, requirements and architecture, and studies the possibilities of how it might change the future industrial automation applications.