Celona unifies private 5G, Wi-Fi and satellite links for robots

A robot leaving a factory floor should not have to choose its future before it moves. Celona says its new Orion platform lets autonomous vehicles and autonomous mobile robots move among private 5G, Wi-Fi, public cellular and satellite connectivity while keeping a single identity across the network. The company launched the system on August 12, 2026, for enterprises building automated operations.

The problem is practical. Wi-Fi can struggle with mobile robots, Celona says, while private 5G can be constrained when machines need to move large amounts of data overnight. Orion is designed to let each connection do what it does best: an uncrewed mining hauler might use private 5G during normal operations, then switch to Wi-Fi inside a garage for high-speed downloads and software updates.

The platform combines private 5G and Wi-Fi 7 access points under one subscription and manages them through Orion Orchestrator, a single control panel. Celona says the system also supports other vendors’ Wi-Fi and private 5G networks. Security features include SIM-based identity, micro-segmentation for operational technology and separation between information technology and operational technology.

Celona is also releasing AerConnect, an open-source agent for robot manufacturers. It is designed to see the wireless interfaces available to a machine, monitor their condition and steer traffic between them. A robot could therefore decide when to switch networks based on quality thresholds or a drop in reliability, rather than waiting for a fixed network choice to fail.

So what changes in practice? Factories, warehouses and remote industrial sites could manage several wireless systems as one operating environment, while robots choose the connection suited to the task. Orion also integrates Starlink satellite connectivity, which Celona says can extend the same model to previously unconnected locations and bring new sites online in hours rather than weeks or months. Those timings are the company’s claim; the announcement gives no independent test results or deployment data.