Towards Industry 5.0: Intelligent Reflecting Surface (IRS) in Smart Manufacturing

Intelligent Reflecting Surface (IRS) is expected to become a key enabling technology for 6G wireless communication networks as they can significantly improve the wireless network's performance, creating a controllable radio environment in preferred directions. The vision for Industry 5.0 is for close cooperation between humans and machines, requiring ultra-reliability and low latency communications (URLLC). IRS is expected to play a crucial role in realizing wireless URLLC for Industry 5.0. In this paper, we first provide an overview of IRS technology and then conceptualize the potential for IRS implementation in a smart manufacturing environment to support the emergence of Industry 5.0 with a series of applications. Finally, to stimulate future research in this area, we discuss the strength, open challenges, maturity, and enhancing areas of the IRS technology in modern smart manufacturing.