A brand new analysis report from the IoT analyst agency Berg Perception says that annual shipments of wi-fi gadgets for industrial automation purposes reached 10.7 million models worldwide in 2023, accounting for about 9 p.c of all new linked nodes.
Rising at a compound annual progress charge (CAGR) of 12.3 p.c, annual shipments are anticipated to achieve 19.1 million by 2028.
The put in base of wi-fi gadgets in industrial automation reached on the identical time 56.5 million in 2023. Whereas wired networking options are nonetheless predominantly used for industrial communications between sensors, controllers and methods, wi-fi options have gained a powerful foothold in quite a few purposes. Wi-fi options are utilized in hard-to-reach areas or hazardous areas the place wired options are impractical, ineffective or cost-prohibitive.
In manufacturing unit automation, wi-fi options are broadly used to attach cellular industrial gear reminiscent of automated guided autos and to remotely entry machines for programming and servicing.
In course of automation, wi-fi applied sciences are more and more utilized in non-mission vital purposes to remotely monitor and optimise processes whereas additionally making certain employee security.
At this time, a rising variety of wi-fi discipline gadgets are offered by many main industrial automation distributors together with ABB, Emerson, Hitachi, Honeywell, OMRON, Schneider Electrical, Siemens and Yokogawa.
Wi-Fi has emerged as essentially the most broadly used wi-fi expertise in industrial environments largely as a result of huge availability of suitable {hardware}. Suppliers of business Wi-Fi gadgets embrace Siemens, Cisco, Belden, Moxa, Phoenix Contact, HMS Networks and Advantech. The 802.15.4-based protocol WirelessHART is the second largest wi-fi expertise utilized in discipline gadgets. The expertise is widespread in distant monitoring purposes for course of industries. Emerson turned the primary firm to market WirelessHART merchandise in 2008 and has as we speak an put in base of greater than 10 million wi-fi stress transmitters.
Mobile options are sometimes used for knowledge acquisition and backhaul communications in distributed automation purposes. The most important suppliers of mobile IoT gateways and routers within the industrial house embrace Semtech, Cisco, Digi Worldwide, Moxa, GE Vernova, HMS Networks, Robustel, InHand Networks and Teltonika Networks. Units that includes Wi-Fi, WirelessHART and mobile connectivity accounted for 70 p.c of the put in base in 2023.
“Partnerships and collaborations between industrial automation players and technology companies are increasingly focused on artificial intelligence,” stated Veronika Barta, IoT Analyst at Berg Perception.
Throughout 2023–2024, the economic automation market witnessed each the emergence of latest partnerships in addition to the extension of current collaborations specializing in AI. As an illustration, each ABB and Siemens prolonged their respective partnerships with Microsoft to give attention to generative AI purposes in digital options. As well as, each Schneider Electrical and Siemens have partnerships with NVIDIA to advance using AI-powered industrial options. Most just lately in June 2024, Rockwell Automation introduced a collaboration with NVIDIA to scale using AI in industrial cellular robots.
Ms. Barta concluded:
“More collaborations and partnerships can be expected in the coming years as solution providers bet on AI to optimise industrial processes.”
