Performance Study of LoRa WAN, LoRaMesh, and Hybrid Networks for a Smart Farming Scenario

The development of technologies that use the In- ternet of Things (IoT) has contributed significantly to enabling productivity growth in Smart Agriculture. In this context, wire- less sensor networks are being increasingly used in various types of systems aimed at Smart Agriculture scenarios. Among the communication protocols used by these systems, Long Range (LoRa) technology stands out for supporting transmissions over long distances, requiring little energy. This article proposes a study, comparison and analysis of the LoRaWAN and Lo- RaMesh network architectures, as well as the hybridization of these technologies in an agricultural environment. The proposed methodology consists of the implementation in a real scenario, and analysis of the network parameters using the LoRaWAN and LoRaMesh modules acquired from the company Radioenge. The performance evaluation was performed based on measurements of a real Non-line-of-sight (NLOS) scenario, that is, where there is no line of sight between devices due to a large number of barriers. In this evaluation, factors such as distance between nodes and different Spreading Factor (SF) were considered. The evaluation metrics considered in this study are the Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI), the Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) and the packet loss rate. With the analysis and comparison of LoRaWAN and LoRaMesh technologies, as well as their hybridization, this study aims to present information about the solution that offers the best performance in relation to the cost and use of the communication infrastructure implemented in the Smart Farming scenario.