Recently, the Shell Pernis refinery in the port of Rotterdam, the Netherlands, has become the largest industrial 5G field laboratory in Europe. Shell and KPN, Huawei, ABB and Accenture and other partners are actively conducting 5G innovative testing in industrial applications. The project aims to put to test 5G technical characteristics to effectively improve the safety of factory operations and ensure the safety of workers, while improving the efficiency and accuracy of operation and maintenance.
The test applications that have been carried out include: 5G connected mobile inspection robots, which respond quickly to pipeline leaks; intelligent 5G helmets allow engineers to maintain communication through ultra-high-definition video, allowing field experts to jointly check in real time, allowing key inspection delivery times are shortened from days to hours. At the same time, 5G enhances the digitization of operations, and the digital information of a large number of sensors and augmented reality applications can be updated in real time, which contributes to better machine learning and preventive maintenance, making it easy to manage 160,000km of pipeline inspection.