Jansen C. Liando
Abstract
Long Range (LoRa) is a Low-power Wide-area Network technology designed for the Internet of Things. In recent years, it has gained significant momentum among industrial and research communities. Patented by Semtech, LoRa makes use of chirp spread spectrum modulation to deliver data with promises of long battery life, far-reaching communication distances, and a high node density at the cost of data rate. In this article, we conduct a series of experiments to verify the claims made by Semtech on LoRa technology. Our results show that LoRa is capable of communicating over 10km under line-of-sight environments. However, under non-line-of-sight environments, LoRa’s performance is severely affected by obstructions such as buildings and vegetations. Moreover, the promise of prolonged battery life requires extreme tuning of parameters. Last, a LoRa gateway supports up to 6,000 nodes with PRR requirement of >70%. This study also explores the relationship between LoRa transmission parameters and proposes an algorithm to determine optimal settings in terms of coverage and power consumption under non-line-of-sight environments. It further investigates the impact of LoRa Wide-area Networks on energy consumption and network capacity along with implementation of a LoRa medium access mechanism and possible gains brought forth by implementing such a mechanism.
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Index Terms
- Known and Unknown Facts of LoRa: Experiences from a Large-scale Measurement Study
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Reviews
Mohammad Sadegh Kayhani Pirdehi
Proposal and critique are two steps in the evolution of scientific theories and ideas: an idea is founded in a proposal and advanced via critiques. In the Internet of Things (IOT), equilibrium among power consumption, coverage, and coexistence is key to performance, for example, satisfactory data rates. The paradigm shift that is long range (LoRa) technology amends the IoT by providing scalability in low-power wide-area networks (LPWANs). In this paper, the authors criticize, examine, and evaluate LoRa. Factors like configuration, medium access control (MAC) behaviors, and physical layer (PHY) efficiency are discussed in the context of system performance, reliability, and robustness. After a brief introduction to the paper's objectives, a comprehensive discussion of the LoRa modulation scheme and key technical parameters is provided. Section 3, "Promises of LoRa," practically evaluates the featured specifications of LoRa. Section 4, "Beyond LoRa," proposes potential improvements and optimizations to the current LoRa system. The paper introduces chirp spread spectrum (CSS) for LoRa modulation, and spreading factor (SF), frequency bandwidth (BW), and channel and transmission power (TX Pow) are counted as the key parameters of its configuration. Communication distance, lifetime of nodes, and multiple access are used to evaluate LoRa's operational performance. Communication distance is highly dependent on SF, BW, TX Pow, and code rate (CR). Moreover, no line of sight due to crowded urban areas severely degrades LoRa coverage, and its transmission is considerably impacted by high-rise buildings. With regards to energy utilization, microcontroller and transceiver operations are studied to estimate the lifetime of LoRa nodes. Prediction mechanisms are identified for node lifetime and energy consumption. Emphasizing the superiority of concurrent communication in a single LoRa channel, the paper details LoRa's multiple access policy according to its standard gateway, IMST IC880A, and explores the role of spreading factors. The last section includes experiments for evaluating the operational features of LoRa and proposes an optimized parameter setting algorithm. The authors discuss the LoRaWAN medium access control (MAC) mechanism and concurrent reception capacity, test different carrier sense multiple access (CSMA) policies, and review LoRa PHY. A valuable exploratory theme can be recognized in the paper, and the authors precisely dissect the LoRa technology. However, it is more of a technical report than a scientific paper. Divided into many papers, with tangible proposals and contributions, the work would be more accessible.
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