Educational Setup for Service Oriented Process Automation with 5G Testbed

There is a constant challenge in process industry to reduce costs because of tight competition on the global market. On the other hand the advancement in the new technologies such as Open Platform Communications Unified Architecture (OPC UA), Industrial Ethernet, 5G, and cloud computing provide the possibility to implement cost effective Cyber-physical systems (CPS). This allows flexible, reconfigurable, scalable, interoperable business models. These trends in the process industry should be taken into account while teaching future engineers. In this article the modern process automation setup which includes three miniplants with optional 5G connectivity is described along with teaching approach for executing the students projects. Using this infrastructure students obtain knowledge with emerging industrial technology and become the actors of upcoming industrial revolution.