Empirical Evaluation of Multihop DECT-2020 NR in a Factory Environment

As Industry 4.0 drives the shift to flexible wireless automation, novel technologies such as DECT-2020 NR present promising capabilities designed to support ultra-reliable and low latency communication. However, the performance of this technology under realistic industrial traffic conditions and multihop operation remains insufficiently characterized. Consequently, a comprehensive evaluation is necessary to assess its suitability for dependable factory deployments. This paper presents an empirical study conducted in an operating factory, focusing on a two-hop communication where an operational automated guided vehicle serves as a mobile relay. The testbed setup applies hardware timestamping and a traffic pattern derived from real industrial applications. The measurements enable a detailed assessment of key performance indicators such as one-way delay, packet delay variation, and packet error rate under realistic network load and mobility. Results show consistently low latency and jitter across two hops. However, the packet error rate is increased under the specified network load, which may be attributed to current hardware limitations that will improve in future DECT-2020 NR implementations.