Energy consumption in long-range linear wireless sensor networks using LoRaWan and ZigBee

This paper compares the energy consumption used for communication in the special case of a wireless sensor network that is deployed linearly over a long distance to monitor assets such as transmission lines or pipelines. A model for energy consumption is developed based on a suitable network architecture for a linear wireless sensor network (WSN). Using the model, the energy consumption of networks based on two popular wireless communication protocols, LoRaWan and Zigbee, is compared. The results show LoRaWan has significantly better energy efficiency than ZigBee for a linear WSN.