Measurement and Analysis of 4G/5G Mobile Signal Coverage in a Heavy Industry Environment

Sensors (Basel). 2024 Apr 15;24(8):2538. doi: 10.3390/s24082538.

Abstract

In the evolving landscape of Industry 4.0, the integration of advanced wireless technologies into manufacturing processes holds the promise of unprecedented connectivity and efficiency. In particular, the data transmission in a heavy industry environment needs stable connectivity with mobile operators. This paper deals with the performance study of 4G and 5G mobile signal coverage within a complex factory environment. For this purpose, a cost-effective and portable measurement setup was realized and used to provide long-term measurement campaigns monitoring and recording several key parameter indicators (KPIs) in 4G/5G downlink and upload. To support the reproducibility of the provided study and other research activities, the measured dataset is publicly available for download. Among others findings, the obtained results show how the performance of 4G/5G is influenced by a heavy industry environment and of the time of day on the network load.

Keywords: 4G; 5G; coverage mapping; industrial factory; key performance indicators; mobile networks.

Grants and funding

This research was supported by the Internal Grant Agency of Brno University of Technology (BUT) under project no. FEKT-S-23-8191 and by TACR project no. FW03010366.