Airvine University Video Series
Session 2 – Episode 4 (4:31 min.)
Welcome to the Airvine University course on Applications, Chapter 4, where we’re going to talk a little bit about the industrial market.
And by industrial market, we’re referring to not just factories, but warehouses and automated warehouses of the future.
And today, if we look at the new movement of Industrial 4.O, which comes after Industrial 3.O, the use case is, what’s driving greater need for better networks, higher performance and lower latency?
Artificial intelligence, robotics, 3D printing, big data, autonomous vehicles, quantum computing, all of these are being folded into what’s called Industrial 4.O. And all of these are straining the original CAT5 network that was deployed 20 years ago in these factories beyond the point of support.
So if we look at what is the value proposition for the WaveTunnel solution in the industrial market? Well, it’s very simple. Industrial 4.O relies on massive connectivity with high speed, low latency. Not only has the existing cabling run out of steam, it’s often in the wrong place. Your factory has gone through significant upgrades, and running new cable is not only costly and time consuming, but many of these facilities are running by 24 x 7 and downtime is just not an option. Quick reconfiguration of backhaul is often required as the factory floor changes, as the factory flow changes, as the equipment changes. You’re going to find that you need network connectivity in new places where you don’t have it today.
And what’s really unique to this application is that the spaces to be covered can be hundreds of thousands of square feet. There are car factories that are half a mile long indoor that you’re trying to run this cable throughout that entire facility through the hundreds of thousands of square feet to give the connectivity where you need it for your for your factory operation.
If we look at a very simple use case, connecting a warehouse using cable versus the WaveTunnel, the project is 250 stores, each measuring 300 feet by 100 feet. And what this customer wants to do is connect 4 Wi-Fi access points throughout the building to provide seamless coverage from a Wi-Fi perspective back to the head end in that wiring closet. They only allow this work to be done in off hours and if you’re going to do this with a cable approach, the cost is going to be–just for the cable–$25-$30,000.
But that’s not really what you’re what you’re going to be paying for. The cables must be strung along the ceiling which is going to require a scissor lift rental, professional cablers, safety as these people are up 100 feet in the air. Each cable run represents a single point of failure and we estimate with our partners, four days to put in those four access points per store.
If you’re going to total that over 250 stores, it’s going to come in at a cost of seven and a half million dollars and 1000 man days for the old wired approach.
Using the WaveTunnel solution, your bill of materials is going to be between $15,000 and $17,000 per store. There are no cables to run You mount the access point and the WaveTunnel in the same location at the same time the scissor lift goes up. Once installed, both devices move to the second location, the third location, & the 4th location. You’re done. No professional skills are required. You just mount these devices on top, plug them in, configure them with your smartphone and your networks up and running.
If you like, the WaveTunnel network also supports resiliency. You can deploy these in a ring to ensure that if there is a disruption in any of the connections, it will reroute the other way and make make sure your network is still functional with the WaveTunnel.
We estimate one day per store to install these four access points and the backbone to connect them. The net? The total cost over 250 stores is estimated about half, in terms of money, and 1/4 of the man-days in terms of time.
So if this is something that you’re running into, if this is a problem that you’re seeing and you haven’t been able to figure out a way to solve this problem, click on the link below and we’ll give you some more detail and background on how Airvine with the WaveTunnel system can help you.