Low-Power Wide Area Network Technologies for Internet-of-Things: A Comparative Review

Abstract

The rapid growth of Internet-of-Things (IoT) in the current decade has led to the development of a multitude of new access technologies targeted at low-power, wide area networks (LP-WANs). However, this has also created another challenge pertaining to technology selection. This paper reviews the performance of LP-WAN technologies for IoT, including design choices and their implications. We consider Sigfox, LoRaWAN, WavIoT, random phase multiple access (RPMA), narrow band IoT (NB-IoT) as well as LTE-M and assess their performance in terms of signal propagation, coverage and energy conservation. The comparative analyses presented in this paper are based on available data sheets and simulation results. A sensitivity analysis is also conducted to evaluate network performance in response to variations in system design parameters. Results show that each of RPMA, NB-IoT and LTE-M incurs at least 9 dB additional path loss relative to Sigfox and LoRaWAN. This study further reveals that with a 10% improvement in receiver sensitivity, NB-IoT 882 MHz and LoRaWAN can increase coverage by up to 398% and 142% respectively, without adverse effects on the energy requirements. Finally, extreme weather conditions can significantly reduce the active network life of LP-WANs. In particular, the results indicate that operating an IoT device in a temperature of-20 • C can shorten its life by about half; 53% (WavIoT, LoRaWAN, Sigfox, NB-IoT, RPMA) and 48% in LTE-M compared with environmental temperature of 40 • C.

IoT Connectivity Technologies and Applications: A Survey

“…In 2015, a LoRa-based communication protocol called LoRaWAN was standardized by LoRa-Alliance [107]. LoRaWAN is organized in a star-of-stars topology, where gateway devices relay messages between end-devices and a central network server [25]. In LoRaWAN, three types of devices (Class A, B, and C) with different capabilities are defined [108].…”

Energy Peer-to-Peer Trading in Virtual Microgrids in Smart Grids: A Game-Theoretic Approach

“…In this study, the ETA coordinates the transaction messaging services between producers and consumers. Examples of communication infrastructure that may implement the ETA include NB-IoT, LoRaWAN, Wi-Fi, WIMAX, or LTE-MTC [36], [37]. The prosumers have finite energy generation capacity and also need to act as energy consumers at times.…”

Experimenting LoRa‐compliant solutions in Real‐World Scenarios

“…The first platform is the one presented in and is, from this moment on, referred to as Prototype #1 . The second one, instead, newly introduced herein, is based on the LoPy embedded board and is, from now on, referred to as Prototype #2 . Prototype #1 demonstrated the potential of rapid prototyping standard‐compliant solutions to realize small‐sized and energy‐independent devices for environmental monitoring.…”

“…From an architectural point of view, for each prototype, the networks are composed by an end-node, monitoring the environment and transmitting data to the gateway, and a gateway, in charge of forwarding the received messages to the network server. The first platform is the one presented in 6 and is, from this moment on, 1 and is, from now on, referred to as Prototype #2. Prototype #1 demonstrated the potential of rapid prototyping standard-compliant solutions to realize small-sized and energy-independent devices for environmental monitoring.…”

“…LPWANs efficiently address connectivity, optimized energy management, security, network complexity, and fast-paced development. [1][2][3] Research efforts are devoted to the design and practical implementation of high-density IoT networks for distributed and integrated detection, monitoring, and processing systems. 4-6 Choosing the suitable communication infrastructure for data acquisition may affect scalability, reliability and energy efficiency.…”