Understanding the limits of LoRaWAN

The quick proliferation of LPWAN networks, being LoRaWAN one of the most adopted, raised the interest of the industry, network operators and facilitated the development of novel services based on large scale and simple network structures. LoRaWAN brings the desired ubiquitous connectivity to enable most of the outdoor IoT applications and its growth and quick adoption are real proofs of that. Yet the technology has some limitations that need to be understood in order to avoid over-use of the technology. In this article we aim to provide an impartial overview of what are the limitations of such technology, and in a comprehensive manner bring use case examples to show where the limits are

The search for a convergent option to deploy smart grids on IoT scenario

Smart city projects are quickly evolving in several countries as a feasible solution to the urban organization to provide sustainable socioeconomic growth and solve problems that arise as the populations of these cities grow. In this sense, technology application plays an important role in enabling automation of processes, improving the citizen’s quality of life and reducing the costs of public services for municipalities and enterprises. However, automation initiatives of services such as electricity, water, and gas which materialize by the so-called smart grids, have emerged earlier than smart city projects, and are consolidating in several countries. Although smart grid initiatives have arisen earlier to projects of smart cities it represents a subset of the great scenario of IoT that is the vision in which the smart city projects are based. The time difference from developments between these two initiatives made the alternatives of communication technologies for infrastructures construction of communication followed different paths. However, in view of the great scenery of IoT is desirable to determine technologies that provide convergence of a single urban communication infrastructure capable of supporting all applications, whether they are typically IoT or traditional smart grid applications. This work is a review which presents and discusses the two main technologies which are currently best positioned to play this role of convergence that is RF Mesh and LoRaWAN. The strengths and weaknesses of each one of them are also presented and propose that in actuality LoRaWAN is a promising option to offer the required conditions to take on this convergent position2356957

A comparative study of loRaWAN, sigFox, and NB-IoT for smart water grid

Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN) are becoming the powerful communication technologies of the IoT of tomorrow. LoRaWAN, SigFox, and NB-IoT are the three competing LPWAN technologies. On the other hand, Smart Water Grid (SWG) is an emerging paradigm that promises to overcome issues such as pipes leaks encountered by current water infrastructure by deploying smart devices into the water infrastructure for monitoring purposes. This paper firstly explores the physical and communication features of the above LPWAN technologies and provides a comprehensive comparison between them as well as their suitability for the Smart Water Grid (SWG) use case. The important aspect of SWG is to connect devices such as smart water meters and other tiny devices like sensors installed into the water pipelines for the system monitoring purpose. We consider Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) also called Smart Water Metering when dealing with the water grid, which is the main application of SWG and we study the scalability of LoRaWAN, NB-IoT, and SigFox in such application. Under NS3, the simulation results show that NB-IoT provides the best scalability compared to LoRaWAN and SigFox and thus is able to support a huge number of devices with a low packet error rate.publishe

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

Smart city pilot projects using LoRa and IEEE802.15.4 technologies

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), through wireless communications and the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm, are the enabling keys for transforming traditional cities into smart cities, since they provide the core infrastructure behind public utilities and services. However, to be effective, IoT-based services could require different technologies and network topologies, even when addressing the same urban scenario. In this paper, we highlight this aspect and present two smart city testbeds developed in Italy. The first one concerns a smart infrastructure for public lighting and relies on a heterogeneous network using the IEEE 802.15.4 short-range communication technology, whereas the second one addresses smart-building applications and is based on the LoRa low-rate, long-range communication technology. The smart lighting scenario is discussed providing the technical details and the economic benefits of a large-scale (around 3000 light poles) flexible and modular implementation of a public lighting infrastructure, while the smart-building testbed is investigated, through measurement campaigns and simulations, assessing the coverage and the performance of the LoRa technology in a real urban scenario. Results show that a proper parameter setting is needed to cover large urban areas while maintaining the airtime sufficiently low to keep packet losses at satisfactory levels

Implementation of the Lora System for Temperature and Humidity Monitoring in POLBAN Classrooms

The need for temperature and humidity monitoring in classrooms, is very important for the purpose of comfortable teaching and learning processes, especially after the Covid-19 pandemic conditions. At Politeknik Negeri Bandung (POLBAN), there are more than a hundred classrooms. The rooms are spread over several buildings; therefore, the process of monitoring temperature and humidity will be difficult if it is done using a cable (wireline). In this study, a temperature and humidity monitoring system for classrooms at POLBAN will be made using LoRa wireless architecture. In several classrooms, temperature and humidity sensors will be installed combined with a LoRa sending system. There are conditioned room and unconditioned room. On the monitoring center, a LoRa receiver system is also installed. Data from each classroom, will wirelessly be sent to the monitoring center, for further processing. In the implementation stage, one gateway, 4 endnotes with DHT11 sensor are used. Testing process is carried out by verifying and monitoring performance in 4 classrooms and in open spaces. Results of verifying show a difference of 2℃ and 1% of the RH value with a reference measuring instrument. There is no difference in temperature and RH values at the endnode and gateway

Performance Evaluation of Long Range (LoRa) Wireless RF Technology for the Internet of Things (IoT) Using Dragino LoRa at 915 MHz

Internet of Things (IoT) is a developing concept that introduces the network of physical sensors that are interconnected to each other. Within this smart environment, smart objects use the interconnectivity to process, communicate, and exchange data among themselves without any human interaction. Some sensors are wirelessly connected among themselves and to the internet. Currently, IoT applications demand substantial requirements in terms of Radio Access Network (RAN) such as long-range outdoor coverage, environmental factors, obstructions, interference, power consumption, and many others. Also, the current wireless technologies are not able to satisfy all these requirements simultaneously. Therefore, there is no single wireless standard that would predominate the IoT. However, one relevant wireless radio solution to IoT is known as Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN), which is one of the Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) technologies [1]. LPWAN has appeared as a significant solution to offer advantages such as long-range coverage connectivity with low power consumption, an unlicensed spectrum, and affordability. Most likely LoRa with the inherent long-range coverage and low power consumption features will become the “go-to” technology for IoT applications [2]. LoRa is a novel solution that is attracting considerable attention for both academic and industrial purposes [3, 4]. For that reason, the proposed research entails the feasibility analysis and performance evaluation of LoRa communication focusing on the physical layer, which involves the radio configuration parameters such as Spreading Factor (SF), Signal Bandwidth (BW), Coding Rate (CR), and payload size. This experimental work includes connecting to different IoT servers in the cloud, such as “The Things Network” (TTN), “ThinkSpeak”, and integration with “Cayenne”. Therefore, 348 (120 first + 228-second test) different configurations are carried out among SF, BW, CR, and payload in order to measure the impact on Time-on-air (ToA). When a payload size of 25 bytes (2 sensors) was connected to the ThingSpeak server, only 57 out of 120 configurations met the FCC’s requirement on ToA (\u3c 400 ms) [5]. It was observed that the number of configurations reduced further to 23 when the payload size was increased up to 118 bytes (10 sensors)