Measurement of LoRa-based Received Signal Strength Indication (RSSI) Using Point-to-Point Topology in a Seaside Area

A data monitoring system’s performance analysis is fundamental to proving quality and networking efficiency. This paper presents the received signal strength indication (RSSI) measurements of wireless communication with point-to-point LoRa technology for use in the 433 MHz frequency band. The test was performed in the area of Chalathat beach, Songkhla province, Thailand, which has a barrier environment of trees along the shore and is opposite the Rajamangala University of Technology Srivijaya (RUTS). This demonstration was conducted in the actual location to observe the loss from coastal environment conditions from waves and sea breeze. In addition, the study aimed to determine the effect of signal performance by RSSI measurements. The test consisted of a transmitter (Tx) and a receiver (Rx) with a transmit power of 17 dBm and an antenna gain of 3 dBi on both Tx and Rx. The testing starts with RSSI measurements from a distance of 10 meters and increases the number of measures by 10 meters until data loss begins. The test results showed that communication distances could be connected up to 500 meters without packet loss, with RSSI as low as -107 dBm, and a correlation graph in the form of a logarithmic function with a reduced tendency. However, the RSSI value decreases as the distance increases. At the same time, the test results can indicate its effectiveness as a guide for further application of monitoring systems at the beach area

Das Internet der Dinge im städtischen Abwassersystem : Potenziale der LoRa-Technologie für reichweitenkritische Anwendungen im Untergrund

Das Paper wurde im Download-Bereich der Konferenz "Internet of Things: vom Sensor bis zur Cloud" erstveröffentlicht: https://events.weka-fachmedien.de/internet-of-things.Hat Niedrigenergiefunk (LPWAN) das Potenzial die Prozessüberwachung in Infrastrukturen im Untergrund zu revolutionieren? Inwieweit eignen sich LPWANs, als neuartige Drahtlos-überragung des Internet-der-Dinge bekannte Technologie, für eine räumlich differenzierte und effiziente Langzeitüberwachung? Kann der etablierte LoRaWAN-Standard für reichwei-tenkritische Anwendungen angepasst werden? Grundlage für die Erörterung dieser Fragen sind einerseits unsere Erfahrungen seit Mai 2016 beim Aufbau und dem Betrieb eines Drahtlossensornetzwerks mit im Untergrund in-stallierten Sensoren in einer mittelgrossen Schweizer Gemeinde, und andererseits die dar-aus entstandene Neuentwicklung eines vermaschten LPWANs basierend auf der LoRa-Technologie. Im Einzelnen beleuchten wir i) die technischen Anforderungen an Sensorik und der Datenübertragungstechnologie für Anwendungen im Untergrund, ii) die Anwen-dungserfahrungen bezüglich Funkreichweite, Skalierbarkeit und Übertragungszuverlässig-keit, und iii) eine technologische Weiterentwicklung, welche die Reichweitenlimitierung ent-schärft und so eine effiziente Übertragung aus dem Untergrund ermöglicht. Unsere Untersuchungen unterstreichen die grundsätzliche Eignung des LoRa-WAN - Standards für eine Echtzeit-Über-wachung von Prozessabläufen im Unter-grund. Technologiespezifische Grenzen (Reichweite, Quality of Service) werden durch unsere Langzeitexperimente quan-titativ aufgezeigt. Die Neuentwicklung ei-nes vermaschten, LoRa-basierten Funks verbessert die Zuverlässigkeit der Über-tragung erheblich. Sinnvoll eingesetzt kann diese Neuerung einen wesentlichen Beitrag zur stabilen Prozessüberwachung von Infrastruktur im Untergrund leisten

Design and analysis of adaptive hierarchical low-power long-range networks

A new phase of evolution of Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communication has started where vertical Internet of Things (IoT) deployments dedicated to a single application domain gradually change to multi-purpose IoT infrastructures that service different applications across multiple industries. New networking technologies are being deployed operating over sub-GHz frequency bands that enable multi-tenant connectivity over long distances and increase network capacity by enforcing low transmission rates to increase network capacity. Such networking technologies allow cloud-based platforms to be connected with large numbers of IoT devices deployed several kilometres from the edges of the network. Despite the rapid uptake of Long-power Wide-area Networks (LPWANs), it remains unclear how to organize the wireless sensor network in a scaleable and adaptive way. This paper introduces a hierarchical communication scheme that utilizes the new capabilities of Long-Range Wireless Sensor Networking technologies by combining them with broadly used 802.11.4-based low-range low-power technologies. The design of the hierarchical scheme is presented in detail along with the technical details on the implementation in real-world hardware platforms. A platform-agnostic software firmware is produced that is evaluated in real-world large-scale testbeds. The performance of the networking scheme is evaluated through a series of experimental scenarios that generate environments with varying channel quality, failing nodes, and mobile nodes. The performance is evaluated in terms of the overall time required to organize the network and setup a hierarchy, the energy consumption and the overall lifetime of the network, as well as the ability to adapt to channel failures. The experimental analysis indicate that the combination of long-range and short-range networking technologies can lead to scalable solutions that can service concurrently multiple applications

Scalability Analysis of a LoRa Network under Imperfect Orthogonality

Low-power wide-area network (LPWAN) technologies are gaining momentum for internet-of-things (IoT) applications since they promise wide coverage to a massive number of battery-operated devices using grant-free medium access. LoRaWAN, with its physical (PHY) layer design and regulatory efforts, has emerged as the widely adopted LPWAN solution. By using chirp spread spectrum modulation with qausi-orthogonal spreading factors (SFs), LoRa PHY offers coverage to wide-area applications while supporting high-density of devices. However, thus far its scalability performance has been inadequately modeled and the effect of interference resulting from the imperfect orthogonality of the SFs has not been considered. In this paper, we present an analytical model of a single-cell LoRa system that accounts for the impact of interference among transmissions over the same SF (co-SF) as well as different SFs (inter-SF). By modeling the interference field as Poisson point process under duty-cycled ALOHA, we derive the signal-to-interference ratio (SIR) distributions for several interference conditions. Results show that, for a duty cycle as low as 0.33%, the network performance under co-SF interference alone is considerably optimistic as the inclusion of inter-SF interference unveils a further drop in the success probability and the coverage probability of approximately 10% and 15%, respectively for 1500 devices in a LoRa channel. Finally, we illustrate how our analysis can characterize the critical device density with respect to cell size for a given reliability target

Local energy markets - an IT-architecture design

In recent years, local energy markets have become an important concept in more decentralized energy systems. Implementations in pilot projects provide first insights into different hypotheses and approaches. From a technical perspective, the requirements for the IT infrastructure of a local energy market are diverse, and a holistic view of its architecture is therefore necessary. This article presents an IT-architecture, which enables all basic local energy market functionalities, processes and modules based on the available literature. The proposed IT-architecture can serve as a blueprint for future local market projects as it covers the basic processes and is at the same time extendable. Furthermore, we give a detailed description of a real-world implementation of a local energy market using the described IT-architecture and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the utilized technologies along with this case study

“Análisis comparativo entre tecnologías LoRaWAN y GSM/GPRS a fin de evaluar métricas como el rendimiento, consumo de energía y cobertura para transmisiones de datos en escenarios IoT.”

En el presente artículo se analiza la transmisión de datos entre tecnologías LoRa y GSM en un escenario urbano y rural a través de un sistema de monitorización de sensores de humedad y temperatura en el entorno Arduino, con el fin de comparar en base a métricas como el rendimiento el cual se determina mediante el tiempo de envió de paquetes y la cantidad de paquetes recibidos y perdidos, referente a la cobertura se mide a partir de la intensidad de señal y en cuanto al consumo de energía se cuantifica a través de la potencia eléctrica emitida en función del tiempo de envío. Esta información será subida y almacenada en el servidor de la nube. Finalmente se determinan los resultados de las pruebas realizadas donde cada una de las tecnologías se destacan en base a las métricas establecidas, siendo LoRa el que mejor desempeño, con un 27.00 % menor de paquetes perdidos y un 84.65% menor consumo de energía.This article analyzes the data transmission between LoRa and GSM technologies in an urban and rural setting through a monitoring system of humidity and temperature sensors in the Arduino environment, in order to compare based on metrics such as the performance which is determined by the packet sending time and the number of packets received and lost, regarding coverage is measured from the signal intensity and energy consumption is quantified through the electrical power emitted depending on the shipping time. This information will be uploaded and stored on the cloud server. Finally, the results of the tests carried out are determined where each of the technologies stand out based on the established metrics, with LoRa being the one with the best performance, with 27.00% lower lost packets and 84.65% lower energy consumption

A smartwater metering deployment based on the fog computing paradigm

In this paper, we look into smart water metering infrastructures that enable continuous, on-demand and bidirectional data exchange between metering devices, water flow equipment, utilities and end-users. We focus on the design, development and deployment of such infrastructures as part of larger, smart city, infrastructures. Until now, such critical smart city infrastructures have been developed following a cloud-centric paradigm where all the data are collected and processed centrally using cloud services to create real business value. Cloud-centric approaches need to address several performance issues at all levels of the network, as massive metering datasets are transferred to distant machine clouds while respecting issues like security and data privacy. Our solution uses the fog computing paradigm to provide a system where the computational resources already available throughout the network infrastructure are utilized to facilitate greatly the analysis of fine-grained water consumption data collected by the smart meters, thus significantly reducing the overall load to network and cloud resources. Details of the system's design are presented along with a pilot deployment in a real-world environment. The performance of the system is evaluated in terms of network utilization and computational performance. Our findings indicate that the fog computing paradigm can be applied to a smart grid deployment to reduce effectively the data volume exchanged between the different layers of the architecture and provide better overall computational, security and privacy capabilities to the system

Evaluation of a LoRa mesh network for smart metering in rural locations

Accompanying the advancement on the Internet of Things (IoT), the concept of remote monitoring and control using IoT devices is becoming popular. Digital smart meters hold many advantages over traditional analog meters, and smart metering is one of application of IoT technology. It supports the conventional power system in adopting modern concepts like smart grids, block-chains, automation, etc. due to their remote load monitoring and control capabilities. However, in many applications, the traditional analog meters still are preferred over digital smart meters due to the high deployment and operating costs, and the unreliability of the smart meters. The primary reasons behind these issues are a lack of a reliable and affordable communication system, which can be addressed by the deployment of a dedicated network formed with a Low Power Wide Area (LPWA) platform like wireless radio standards (i.e., LoRa devices). This paper discusses LoRa technology and its implementation to solve the problems associated with smart metering, especially considering the rural energy system. A simulation-based study has been done to analyse the LoRa technology’s applicability in different architecture for smart metering purposes and to identify a cost-effective and reliable way to implement smart metering, especially in a rural microgrid (MG)