Indoor deployment of low-power wide area networks (LPWAN): A LoRaWAN case study

Abstract

The last decade saw the emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm, which aims to connect any object to the Internet. In this context, a new type of wireless communication network emerged known as Low-Power Wire-Area Network (LPWAN). By contrast to well-known short range and multi-hop wireless networks, LPWAN networks allow long range communications at a low bit rate. Furthermore, LPWAN networks are considered to be integrated into 5G. Among LPWAN networks, the LoRaWAN technology gains more and more interest from the research and industrial communities. In this article, we have led a thorough experimental performance evaluation of LoRaWAN in an indoor environment. From this study, we quantify the limits of this technology and expose the merits of using LoRaWAN for IoT communications in the context of 5G.

LoRa indoor coverage and performance in an industrial environment: Case study

“…Some of these studies are in the field of LoRaWAN coverage [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], some of them make a comparison between LoRA and other WAN technologies in terms of physical layer performance [15], [16], and there are a few studies on the interference mitigation for LoRa [17], [18]. To make a clarification of terms, from now onward in this paper, we will use LoRa to refer to the physical layer technology itself, whereas we will use LoRaWAN to refer to the deployment of LoRa based WANs using the LoRaWAN MAC protocol and network architecture.…”

“…Based on those experimental results they model the channel attenuation of LoRa [12]. Apart from outdoor coverage studies, there were two other studies for indoor LoRaWAN coverage, namely [13] and [14]. In [13], authors made excessive measurements to characterize the performance in terms of packet loss, indoor coverage, received signal strength at gateways, power consumption of end devices and delays due to duty cycle.…”

“…Apart from outdoor coverage studies, there were two other studies for indoor LoRaWAN coverage, namely [13] and [14]. In [13], authors made excessive measurements to characterize the performance in terms of packet loss, indoor coverage, received signal strength at gateways, power consumption of end devices and delays due to duty cycle. The gateway was installed indoor and the measurements were done at the same floor, as well at the floors above and below the gateway.…”

LoRaWAN Performance Evaluation with Optimized Configuration

“…The study in [10] investigates the capacity limits of LoRa networks. Based on the conducted experiments, a model describing LoRa communication behavior is developed.…”

“…When f frequencies can be used in LoRaWAN, and each transmitting node can randomly choose one of them for its uplink transmission, the packet delivery ratio can be improved by factor of f, such that Each LoRa transmission is started with a preamble before its main payload. A recent experiment in [10] yields that when the ending part of a transmission collides (i.e., overlap) with the first 5 symbols of the preamble from one other transmission, both of these transmissions can still be recovered correctly by the gateway although they are using similar spreading factor and carrier frequency. This fact requires us to revise the critical interval in LoRa transmission from T to become T-5Tsym, where Tsym denotes the duration of ne preamble symbol.…”