## 5 Results
### Peak Throughput
#### 5.2.3 Factory  
In this non-LoS indoor environment, tests could only be carried out at medium (CD = 15 m) and long (CD = 60 m) distances due to limitations in a factory undergoing digitalisation. Therefore, Figure 10 shows the experimental results obtained for TCP and UDP traffic. The highest performance was observed with WiFi75160, exceeding 1500 Mbps for UDP traffic. However, this configuration also exhibited the lowest ratio between theoretical and actual bitrates, indicating significant room for optimisation in this technology. The next best-performing configuration was WiFi65160, which slightly outperformed WiFi6E -6160 for both TCP and UDP traffic. At a distance of 15 meters, Wi-Fi 6 achieved approximately 1400 Mbps for TCP and 1300 Mbps for UDP, while Wi-Fi 6E displayed a comparable performance. At longer distances, the impact of signal attenuation at higher frequencies became evident, with throughput dropping to around 640 Mbps for both types of traffic. This behaviour is consistent with the logarithmic signal attenuation over distance described by the path loss model in Equation (4), especially at higher frequencies. In particular, the experimental results obtained with WiFi6E -6160 for medium distance in indoor non-LoS scenarios are superior to those obtained in the previous two environments. This may be due to some signal reflection effect from active machinery and manufacturing processes during tests, as the rest of the results do not show such marked differences. These findings suggest that Wi-Fi 6E operation in the 6 GHz band may benefit from multipath propagation effects in complex indoor industrial settings, reinforcing its potential for enhanced performance in such environments. As expected, Wi-Fi 6 outperformed previous generations across all conditions. However, the results for Wi-Fi 7 show some variability. At 15m, they achieved slightly better throughput than Wi-Fi 6 in some configurations, but at 60m, its performance fluctuated and was, in some cases, lower than that of Wi-Fi 6. This suggests that the current generation of Wi-Fi 7 devices and drivers may still be in an early stage of optimisation, which could lead to inconsistencies in real-world performance. Further refinements in firmware, driver implementation, and hardware optimisation may be necessary to fully exploit its potential. At long distances (CD = 60 m), WiFi6_540 exhibited slightly lower performance than WiFi6_580, with differences of approximately 80 Mbps in TCP and 50 Mbps in UDP. This indicates that the additional bandwidth provided by 80 MHz channels may help compensate for propagation losses, particularly in the 6 GHz band. The results confirm the significant improvements introduced by Wi-Fi 6 in challenging environments with obstacles. Although Wi-Fi 7 appears promising, its current performance appears to be influenced by early-stage implementations rather than fundamental technological limitations. Future tests with more mature devices and software updates could provide a more accurate assessment of their real-world capabilities. The results presented in Table 5 show a general trend of improvement in the performance of the newer Wi-Fi technologies, although with some variations. In particular, WiFi6 exhibits the best performance in terms of jitter at both distances, along with relatively low packet loss. A comparison across frequency bands shows that Wi-Fi technologies operating in the 2.4 GHz band (WiFi6_2.420 and WiFi4_2.420) exhibit higher jitter values than their counterparts in 5 GHz and 6 GHz; they also maintain consistently lower packet loss, especially at longer distances. This behaviour can be attributed to the superior propagation characteristics of the 2.4 GHz band, which allows for better signal penetration and stability over distance, despite higher latency. Furthermore, while WiFi7_540 and WiFi7_680 show a slight improvement in jitter at shorter distances, as the distance increases, the performance of Wi-Fi 7 appears to become less consistent, with an increase in both jitter and packet loss.