Evaluation of LoRaWAN transmission range for wireless sensor networks in riparian forests.

Abstract

© 2019 Copyright held by the owner/author(s). Publication rights licensed to ACM. Low power wide area networks (LPWAN) such as long range wide area networks (LoRaWAN), provide several advantages on monitoring systems development in forested environments due to its simple set-up, low cost, low power consumption, and wide coverage. Regarding the coverage area, the transmission in forested environments can be highly attenuated by foliage and must be defined to optimize the number of nodes. This paper discusses an empirical study of LoRa with LoRaWAN transmission range in riparian forests, based on path-loss modeling, using both received signal strength indicator (RSSI) and signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR). The measurements have been conducted in the riparian forest of three local rivers at urban, semi-urban, and rural environments located in the city of Cuenca, Ecuador. The measurement results found that there is a significant distribution difference among measurement places, a high correlation between two banks of the same river, a higher standard deviation in urban measurements and a larger coverage in rural areas.