Experimental Analysis of Wi-Fi 6, MulteFire, and 5G in Real-Time Industrial Connectivity

Industry 4.0 is set to transform manufacturing through enhanced connectivity, where low-latency wireless infrastructure is essential for securely and efficiently linking devices and systems. While Wi-Fi has long served as a reliable solution in the unlicensed spectrum, unlicensed cellular technologies such as MulteFire and the forthcoming 5G NR-U are increasingly viewed as better suited for industrial environments, particularly for supporting large volumes of data with greater efficiency and security. This study experimentally evaluates the performance of 5G Non-Public Networks (NPN) as a proxy for 5G NR-U, benchmarking key metrics such as latency, scalability, and packet loss against MulteFire and Wi-Fi 6. Additionally, it investigates coexistence challenges by evaluating the interference impact between unlicensed networks operating in the 5 GHz band under both stationary and mobile conditions. The experiments present new scalability results for MulteFire and provide, for the first time, a detailed interference analysis comparing MulteFire and Wi-Fi 6, offering practical insights for optimizing industrial wireless deployments. These findings highlight the strengths and current limitations of unlicensed spectrum technologies, offer guidance for future research directions in Wi-Fi and cellular wireless systems design, and underscore the potential of 5G NR-U and needed research in Wi-Fi to drive the next generation of industrial connectivity in the context of Industry 4.0.