Experimental Study on Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN) for Mobile Internet of Things

In the past decade, we have witnessed explosive growth in the number of low-power embedded and Internet-connected devices, reinforcing the new paradigm, Internet of Things (IoT). The low power wide area network (LPWAN), due to its long-range, low-power and low-cost communication capability, is actively considered by academia and industry as the future wireless communication standard for IoT. However, despite the increasing popularity of `mobile IoT', little is known about the suitability of LPWAN for those mobile IoT applications in which nodes have varying degrees of mobility. To fill this knowledge gap, in this paper, we conduct an experimental study to evaluate, analyze, and characterize LPWAN in both indoor and outdoor mobile environments. Our experimental results indicate that the performance of LPWAN is surprisingly susceptible to mobility, even to minor human mobility, and the effect of mobility significantly escalates as the distance to the gateway increases. These results call for development of new mobility-aware LPWAN protocols to support mobile IoT.Comment: To appear at 2017 IEEE 85th Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC'17 Spring

Real Time Performance Testing of LoRa-LPWAN Based Environmental Monitoring UAV System

Aerial drones are emerging in industrial and environmental monitoring as they are effective tools that are able to reach far and isolated areas. However, the regularity communication developments have not grown as fast as the technology needs. Either due to the lack of communication coverage or power inefficiency. As a result, some other solution should be proposed such as the internet of things. Internet of Things technology has a great potential of becoming a leading industry since it makes objects able to communicate with each other. IOT/M2M (Internet of Things/Machine-to-machine) communication could be used in a wide range of applications such as environmental surveillance and monitoring systems. These systems could be fixed ends or moving ends like an Unmanned Ariel vehicle (UAV). In this case, LoRa/LPWAN (Long Range Communication) / (Low Power Wide Area Network) is selected to be the best candidate, since it provides a wide coverage area and power efficient systems. This thesis develops and tests a communication scheme prototype for environmental UAV monitoring system using LoRa-LPWAN. Also, a functional testbed for testing the prototype is proposed as well. The prototype was tested in different environmental sites such as line-of-sight and non-line-of-sight environments. The developed scheme performs successfully in harsh environments and its readings were fully documented throughout this thesis

Versatility Of Low-Power Wide-Area Network Applications

Low-Power Wide-Area Network (LPWAN) is regarded as the leading communication technology for wide-area Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications. It offers low-power, long-range, and low-cost communication. With different communication requirements for varying IoT applications, many competing LPWAN technologies operating in both licensed (e.g., NB-IoT, LTE-M, and 5G) and unlicensed (e.g., LoRa and SigFox) bands have emerged. LPWANs are designed to support applications with low-power and low data rate operations. They are not well-designed to host applications that involve high mobility, high traffic, or real-time communication (e.g., volcano monitoring and control applications).With the increasing number of mobile devices in many IoT domains (e.g., agricultural IoT and smart city), mobility support is not well-addressed in LPWAN. Cellular-based/licensed LPWAN relies on the wired infrastructure to enable mobility. On the other hand, most unlicensed LPWANs operate on the crowded ISM band or are required to duty cycle, making handling mobility a challenge. In this dissertation, we first identify the key opportunities of LPWAN, highlight the challenges, and show potential directions for future research. We then enable the versatility of LPWAN applications first by enabling applications involving mobility over LPWAN. Specifically, we propose to handle mobility in LPWAN over white space considering Sensor Network Over White Space (SNOW). SNOW is a highly scalable and energy-efficient LPWAN operating over the TV white spaces. TV white spaces are the allocated but locally unused available TV channels (54 - 698 MHz in the US). We proposed a dynamic Carrier Frequency Offset (CFO) estimation and compensation technique that considers the impact of the Doppler shift due to mobility. Also, we design energy-efficient and fast BS discovery and association approaches. Finally, we demonstrate the feasibility of our approach through experiments in different deployments. Finally, we present a collision detection and recovery technique called RnR (Reverse & Replace Decoding) that applies to LPWANs. Additionally, we discuss future work to enable handling burst transmission over LPWAN and localization in mobile LPWAN

Supporting Transportation System Management and Operations Using Internet of Things Technology

Low power wide-area network (LPWAN) technology aims to provide long range and low power wireless communication. It can serve as an alternative technology for data transmissions in many application scenarios (e.g., parking monitoring and remote flood sensing). In order to explore its feasibility in transportation systems, this project conducted a review of relevant literature to understand the current status of LPWAN applications. An online survey that targeted professionals concerned with transportation was also developed to elicit input about their experiences in using LPWAN technology for their projects. The literature review and survey results showed that LPWAN’s application in the U.S. is still in an early stage. Many agencies were not familiar with LPWAN technology, and only a few off-the-shelf LPWAN products are currently available that may be directly used for transportation systems. To conceptually explore data transmission, a set of lab tests, using a primary LPWAN technology, namely LoRa, were performed on a university campus area as well as in a rural area. The lab tests showed that several key factors, such as the mounting heights of devices, distance between the gateway and sensor nodes, and brands of devices affected the LPWAN’s performance. Building upon these efforts, the research team proposed a high-level field test plan for facilitating a potential Phase 2 study that will address primary technical issues concerning the feasibility of transmitting data of different sizes, data transmission frequency, and transmission rate, deployment requirements, etc

Performance evaluation of LoRa LPWAN technology for IoT-based blast-induced ground vibration system

The recent proliferation of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) evolution into the Internet of Things (IoT) vision enables a variety of low-cost monitoring applications which allows a seamless transfer of information via embedded computing and network devices. Ambiguous ground vibration can be induced by blasting demolition is a severe concern which grievously damages the nearby dwellings and plants. It is an indispensable prerequisite for measuring the blast-induced ground vibration (BIGV), accomplishing a topical and most active research area. Thus, proposed and developed an architecture which emphasizes the IoT realm and implements a low-power wide-area networks (LPWANs) based system. Especially, using the available Long-Range (LoRa) Correct as Radio Frequency (RF) module, construct a WSN configuration for acquisition and streaming of required data from and to an IoT gateway. The system can wirelessly deliver the information to mine management and surrounding rural peoples to aware of the intensity of BIGV level. In this article, an endeavor has been made to introduce a LoRa WAN connectivity and proved the potentiality of the integrated WSN paradigm by testing of data transmission-reception in a non-line of sight (NLOS) condition. The path loss metrics and other required parameters have been measured using the LoRa WAN technology at 2.4 GHz frequency

Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN): Technology Review And Experimental Study on Mobility Effect

In the past decade, we have witnessed explosive growth in the number of low-power embedded and Internet-connected devices, reinforcing the new paradigm, Internet of Things (IoT). IoT devices like smartphones, home security systems, smart electric meters, garage parking indicators, etc., have penetrated deeply into our daily lives. These IoT devices are increasingly attached and operated in mobile objects like unmanned vehicles, trains, airplanes, etc. The low power wide area network (LPWAN), due to its long-range, low-power and low-cost communication capability, is actively considered by academia and industry as the future wireless communication standard for IoT. However, despite the increasing popularity of mobile IoT, little is known about the suitability of LPWAN for those mobile IoT applications in which nodes have varying degrees of mobility. To fill this knowledge gap, in this thesis:1. We present a thorough review on LPWAN technology focusing on the mobility effect. 2. We conduct an experimental study to evaluate, analyze, and characterize LPWAN in both indoor and outdoor mobile environments.Our experimental results indicate that the performance of LPWAN is surprisingly susceptible to mobility, even to minor human mobility, and the effect of mobility significantly escalates as the distance to the gateway increases. These results call for development of new mobility-aware LPWAN protocols to support mobile IoT

Low-Power Wide-Area Networks: A Broad Overview of its Different Aspects

Low-power wide-area networks (LPWANs) are gaining popularity in the research community due to their low power consumption, low cost, and wide geographical coverage. LPWAN technologies complement and outperform short-range and traditional cellular wireless technologies in a variety of applications, including smart city development, machine-to-machine (M2M) communications, healthcare, intelligent transportation, industrial applications, climate-smart agriculture, and asset tracking. This review paper discusses the design objectives and the methodologies used by LPWAN to provide extensive coverage for low-power devices. We also explore how the presented LPWAN architecture employs various topologies such as star and mesh. We examine many current and emerging LPWAN technologies, as well as their system architectures and standards, and evaluate their ability to meet each design objective. In addition, the possible coexistence of LPWAN with other technologies, combining the best attributes to provide an optimum solution is also explored and reported in the current overview. Following that, a comparison of various LPWAN technologies is performed and their market opportunities are also investigated. Furthermore, an analysis of various LPWAN use cases is performed, highlighting their benefits and drawbacks. This aids in the selection of the best LPWAN technology for various applications. Before concluding the work, the open research issues, and challenges in designing LPWAN are presented.publishedVersio