End-to-End O-RAN Testbed for Edge-AI-Enabled 5G/6G Connected Industrial Robotics
🤖 AI Summary
This work addresses the limitations imposed by wired connectivity on industrial robots, which hinders flexible deployment and efficient updates of AI models. To overcome this, the study develops an end-to-end 5G/6G testbed based on the O-RAN architecture, integrating Edge AI as a Service (E-AIaaS) for the first time on an open wireless platform to support emerging communication paradigms such as semantic and goal-oriented communication. Using an autonomous welding scenario, the system evaluates trade-offs among latency, reliability, and AI accuracy under various data acquisition, edge processing, and real-time streaming strategies. The results demonstrate the feasibility of E-AIaaS–enabled wireless intelligent robotic systems, offering a key technical pathway toward the wireless and intelligent transformation of industrial robotics.
Application Category
📝 Abstract
Connected robotics is one of the principal use cases driving the transition towards more intelligent and capable 6G mobile cellular networks. Replacing wired connections with highly reliable, high-throughput, and low-latency 5G/6G radio interfaces enables robotic system mobility and the offloading of compute-intensive artificial intelligence (AI) models for robotic perception and control to servers located at the network edge. The transition towards Edge AI as a Service (E-AIaaS) simplifies on-site maintenance of robotic systems and reduces operational costs in industrial environments, while supporting flexible AI model life-cycle management and seamless upgrades of robotic functionalities over time. In this paper, we present a 5G/6G O-RAN-based end-to-end testbed that integrates E-AIaaS for connected industrial robotic applications. The objective is to design and deploy a generic experimental platform based on open technologies and interfaces, demonstrated through an E-AIaaS-enabled autonomous welding scenario. Within this scenario, the testbed is used to investigate trade-offs among different data acquisition, edge processing, and real-time streaming approaches for robotic perception, while supporting emerging paradigms such as semantic and goal-oriented communications.
Problem
Research questions and friction points this paper is trying to address.
O-RAN
Edge AI
Industrial Robotics
5G/6G
Connected Robotics
Innovation
Methods, ideas, or system contributions that make the work stand out.
O-RAN
Edge AI as a Service
5G/6G
industrial robotics
semantic communications
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