Ph. D. Project
Title:
Enhancing Industrial IoT Smart Object Servitization with 5G Network
Capabilities"
Dates:
2022/11/01 - 2025/10/30
Supervisor(s):
Description:
The thesis will be carried out as part of a 3-year Franco-German ministerial project aimed at supporting the development of innovative solutions for 5G
private networks in industry.
The common policy objective of France and Germany is to foster European sovereignty in private 5G networks to increase productivity and contribute to
the implementation and use of flexible and sustainable solutions in industry. The project partners are SNCF, CRAN, NOKIA and FRAUNHOFER
Institute.
The digital transformation of the industry can rely on digital twins to improve production costs through optimized supervision and quality control
processes. Technical centers in the railways industry are truly representative as overseeing both standard maintenance (preparation of trains between two
travels) and full renewal of trains at their half-life, so they are under huge constraints in terms of delivery pace, quality control, cost control and risk
assessment.
In this context, the leveraging of digital twins specifically depends on two connectivity characteristics: (1) the network connectivity of the process
physical assets with a high quality of experience (QoE) without loss of connectivity, especially in mobility, (i.e. during movement of operators or M2M
terminals), and (2) geo-localization by means of accurate position monitoring of assets indoor and outdoor. The combination of these two characteristics
is a condition for the supervision and automation of production processes led at the scale of a whole center (around 10 to 30 Ha surface in indoor and/or
outdoor environments), as it is for risk management when tasks involving moving tools and train parts are under consideration.
The emerging 5G network technology will be considered and exploited in the project to study and demonstrate the opportunity to use a single
telecommunications technology to address all industrial needs of SNCF use-cases with a better satisfaction level. The project objective is to define
optimized scenarios for 5G local network application and to demonstrate their potential for supervision, teleoperation and quality control management of
train maintenance processes and analyzed the potential extension to any industrial context. Geo-localization works will be conducted by a German
partner.
The aim of this thesis is to contribute to the prototyping of the use-case of SNCF train maintenance processes using 5G and to demonstrate the potential
of 5G technology to transform physical asset (wagon movers, spare parts boxes, ...) into smart connected devices with associated services. At the same
time, address some of the main challenging issues of todays' train maintenance processes.
The thesis work conducted at CRAN laboratory will take active part in the project with the objectives to :
i) define jointly with the partners the relevant 5G application uses-cases in the SNCF technicenter according to an appropriate methodology
ii) to specify, to develop a prototype of a 5G autonomous open IoT device with integrated decision-making and data processing models, and sensor
fusion capabilities, that will be able to transform a physical asset into a 5G enabled smart connected device, with high level services and energy
constraint. The smart 5G connected device is intended to fulfill the SNCF expectations in assets supervision and management of the quality of operations
carried out on the industrial lines of the SNCF technicentre. The prototype will be based on an available open system (Raspberry SoC and 5G HAT
modem). Work will be conducted in collaboration with a french company as subcontracting partner under license agreement.
iii) to implement and validate the research work in the SNCF technicentre with the help of project's partners.
The doctoral student will be required to travel to France and Germany for research meetings with partners, and to study and to implement the solution in
the SNCF technicentre.
The doctoral student will join a team of academic researchers and industrial engineers and must have good knowledge and experience in HW/SW and
SoC system (e.g., Arduino, Raspberry or ESP32), embedded programming (C, Python, ...), GSM or industrial networks, cyber-physical systems (CPS).
A master's degree in electronics, embedded computing, networks will be highly relevant and appreciated.
private networks in industry.
The common policy objective of France and Germany is to foster European sovereignty in private 5G networks to increase productivity and contribute to
the implementation and use of flexible and sustainable solutions in industry. The project partners are SNCF, CRAN, NOKIA and FRAUNHOFER
Institute.
The digital transformation of the industry can rely on digital twins to improve production costs through optimized supervision and quality control
processes. Technical centers in the railways industry are truly representative as overseeing both standard maintenance (preparation of trains between two
travels) and full renewal of trains at their half-life, so they are under huge constraints in terms of delivery pace, quality control, cost control and risk
assessment.
In this context, the leveraging of digital twins specifically depends on two connectivity characteristics: (1) the network connectivity of the process
physical assets with a high quality of experience (QoE) without loss of connectivity, especially in mobility, (i.e. during movement of operators or M2M
terminals), and (2) geo-localization by means of accurate position monitoring of assets indoor and outdoor. The combination of these two characteristics
is a condition for the supervision and automation of production processes led at the scale of a whole center (around 10 to 30 Ha surface in indoor and/or
outdoor environments), as it is for risk management when tasks involving moving tools and train parts are under consideration.
The emerging 5G network technology will be considered and exploited in the project to study and demonstrate the opportunity to use a single
telecommunications technology to address all industrial needs of SNCF use-cases with a better satisfaction level. The project objective is to define
optimized scenarios for 5G local network application and to demonstrate their potential for supervision, teleoperation and quality control management of
train maintenance processes and analyzed the potential extension to any industrial context. Geo-localization works will be conducted by a German
partner.
The aim of this thesis is to contribute to the prototyping of the use-case of SNCF train maintenance processes using 5G and to demonstrate the potential
of 5G technology to transform physical asset (wagon movers, spare parts boxes, ...) into smart connected devices with associated services. At the same
time, address some of the main challenging issues of todays' train maintenance processes.
The thesis work conducted at CRAN laboratory will take active part in the project with the objectives to :
i) define jointly with the partners the relevant 5G application uses-cases in the SNCF technicenter according to an appropriate methodology
ii) to specify, to develop a prototype of a 5G autonomous open IoT device with integrated decision-making and data processing models, and sensor
fusion capabilities, that will be able to transform a physical asset into a 5G enabled smart connected device, with high level services and energy
constraint. The smart 5G connected device is intended to fulfill the SNCF expectations in assets supervision and management of the quality of operations
carried out on the industrial lines of the SNCF technicentre. The prototype will be based on an available open system (Raspberry SoC and 5G HAT
modem). Work will be conducted in collaboration with a french company as subcontracting partner under license agreement.
iii) to implement and validate the research work in the SNCF technicentre with the help of project's partners.
The doctoral student will be required to travel to France and Germany for research meetings with partners, and to study and to implement the solution in
the SNCF technicentre.
The doctoral student will join a team of academic researchers and industrial engineers and must have good knowledge and experience in HW/SW and
SoC system (e.g., Arduino, Raspberry or ESP32), embedded programming (C, Python, ...), GSM or industrial networks, cyber-physical systems (CPS).
A master's degree in electronics, embedded computing, networks will be highly relevant and appreciated.
Keywords:
IIoT, Industry 4.0, 5G Network, Embedded systems, Smart System, Embedded Intelligence
Conditions:
PLACE OF WORK :
CRAN - Faculté des Sciences et Technologies, Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy, 54500
LANGUAGE :
English is the project's working language.
CRAN - Faculté des Sciences et Technologies, Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy, 54500
LANGUAGE :
English is the project's working language.
Department(s):
| Modeling and Control of Industrial Systems |
Funds:
Funded by BPI France on a Franco-German research project
