## 6 Discussion of Results
A summary of the most suitable Wi-Fi configurations by performance metric is shown in Table 6. As discussed in previous sections, for TCP throughput, WiFi\({}^{6E}\_6\)[160] consistently delivers the highest performance regardless of the communication distance. However, for UDP traffic at short distances, the best-performing technology is WiFi\({}^{6E}\_6\)[80]. The technologies with the lowest \(RTT_{mean}\) results for the various environments differ from each other, although all technologies have \(RTT_{mean}\) results below 2.5 ms, as shown in Figure 5, for all evaluated environments. Nevertheless, WiFi\({}^{6}\_5\)[40] technology stands out as the most suitable option in environments with minimal interference, such as residential areas. In contrast, in environments with overlapping access points and higher interference levels, WiFi\({}^{6E}\_6\)[80] offers the best results among the Wi-Fi technologies evaluated. Based on current findings, several future research directions are proposed to fully exploit the capabilities of WiFi\({}^{6}\), WiFi\({}^{6E}\), and the emerging WiFi\({}^{7}\) standard, whose features are increasingly geared towards deterministic performance. Enhancements such as improved multi-link operation (MLO), time-sensitive capabilities, and more flexible channel access are designed to meet the stringent latency, reliability, and synchronisation requirements of Industry 5.0. These developments position the latest generations of Wi-Fi as strong candidates for time-critical and automation-driven industrial deployments. One key area for future work involves mobility and seamless handover. The promising performance of the 6 GHz band in short-range communications motivates a deeper investigation into the challenges of deploying WiFi\({}^{6E}\_6\)[160] configurations in mobile scenarios, both indoors and outdoors. Particular attention should be given to optimising Fast Roaming procedures to minimise handover latency between access points. This is especially relevant for industrial environments involving autonomous robot fleets, where mobility and uninterrupted connectivity are essential for system coordination and safety. Another critical direction is the development of centralised medium-access scheduling strategies. Future work should explore the coordinated use of OFDMA and Triggered Uplink Access (TUA), introduced in IEEE 802.11 ax to improve channel utilisation and reduce contention in dense deployments with heterogeneous traffic patterns. Such approaches could improve determinism and enable more predictable network behaviour across coexisting devices and services. Finally, the integration of artificial intelligence techniques presents a promising avenue to improve adaptability and resilience. Research should focus on the real-time generation of medium access schedules and dynamic QoS management using machine learning \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{l c c c c} \hline \hline \multicolumn{1}{c}{**Environment**} & **C.D.** & **RTT Mean** & **Peak TCP Traffic** & **Peak UDP Traffic** \\ \hline Residential area & 5 m & WiFi\({}^{5}\)\(\_5\)[40] & WiFi\({}^{6E}\_6\)[160] & WiFi\({}^{6E}\_6\)[60] \\ \hline \multirow{4}{*}{Laboratory zone} & 5 m & WiFi\({}^{6E}\_6\)[80] & WiFi\({}^{6E}\_6\)[160] & WiFi\({}^{6E}\_6\)[60] \\ \cline{2-5}  & 15 m & WiFi\({}^{6E}\_6\)[80] & WiFi\({}^{6E}\_6\)[160] & WiFi\({}^{6E}\_6\)[160] \\ \cline{2-5}  & 60 m & WiFi\({}^{6E}\_6\)[80] & WiFi\({}^{6E}\_6\)[160] & WiFi\({}^{6E}\_6\)[160] \\ \hline \multirow{4}{*}{Factory} & 15 m & WiFi\({}^{6}\)\(\_5\)[40] & WiFi\({}^{6E}\_6\)[160] & WiFi\({}^{6E}\_6\)[160] \\ \cline{2-5}  & 60 m & WiFi\({}^{6}\)\(\_5\)[40] & WiFi\({}^{6E}\_6\)[160] & WiFi\({}^{6E}\_6\)[160] \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 6: Summary of the Wi-Fi technologies’ performance for each environment and communications distance. models. These would allow WiFi networks to self-optimise in response to fluctuations in load, topology, and interference, thereby supporting autonomous operation and adaptive service provisioning in complex industrial settings.