Empirical study on the impact of arc welding on 5G performance

Abstract:
5G is envisioned as a key wireless technology to enable smart manufacturing. 5G allows new manufacturing use cases and provides a high degree of communication flexibility for monitoring processes and controlling machines. Several manufacturing applications involve high power arc welding. In this work, we systematically evaluate the performance of a 5G cellular communication system in the presence of the widely used metal active gas (MAG) type of arc welding process. We carry out our experimental evaluation in a production facility with a robotic arm-controlled spot and line welding processes. Our empirical results indicate that the electromagnetic disturbance from MAG welding does not cause any performance degradation for the 5G system.