This development will facilitate the use of wireless communications for controlling robotic arms and autonomous vehicles, among various other applications.
The study was published in the scientific journal Internet of Things.
The study presents a mechanism that combines multiple advanced features to bridge the divide between wired technologies and Wi-Fi networks.
Enabling reliable wireless communications with limited latency is one of the main challenges of Industry 4.0. With ‘Ponte,’ we demonstrate that it is possible to guarantee strict limits on delay and reliability even over Wi-Fi.
Carlos Barroso Fernández, Study Author, Department of Telematics Engineering, UC3M
The "Ponte" system enables a Wi-Fi router to oversee transmissions while operating robotic arms, internal transport vehicles, factory drone inspection systems, or industrial devices.
The algorithm designates specific times and frequencies for each robot's transmissions, ensuring that packets are delivered with a guaranteed latency of under eight milliseconds for machinery control, thus permitting an operator to remotely manage a robotic arm or a loading robot.
The study indicates that this algorithm can be integrated into next-generation Wi-Fi routers, enabling the industrial sector to lower expenses by eliminating the need for specialized solutions such as 5G or 6G in certain scenarios.
Reliable and Secure Communication
‘Ponte’ guarantees that the robot connection will not suffer any delays in 99.99 % of cases. In fact, in our experiments we demonstrated that a single Wi-Fi router can simultaneously serve 40 devices with robotic control, autonomous guidance, and interactive video applications, while always maintaining the required reliability performance.
Jorge Martín Pérez, Study Author, Department of Telematic Systems Engineering, UPM
The study article has been released as part of the PREDICT-6G initiative, which is coordinated by UC3M and developed under the auspices of the European Union's Horizon Europe program.
With this advance, we will be able to create more deterministic networks, i.e., networks that are more resilient, have less delay, and can predict their behavior. What’s more, all this will be achieved using standard technology in networks that are already deployed.
Antonio de la Oliva, PREDICT-6G Project Coordinator, Study Author and Professor, Department of Telematics Engineering, UC3M
Comunicaciones inalámbricas sin retardos en la industria | Investigación UC3M
Video Credit: Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M)/YouTube.com
Journal Reference:
Barroso-Fernández, C., et al. (2025) Time-Sensitive IIoT Flows over Wi-Fi: a Network Calculus Approach. IEEE Internet of Things Journal. DOI: 10.1109/JIOT.2025.3623878. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/11208663.