LoRaWAN Based Street Lighting for Remote Areas with Shadow Zones

The Long Range (LoRa) technology has been gaining popularity, becoming one of the most promising and frequently used technologies among Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWANs). Highly compatible with Internet of Things (IoT) applications, LoRa enables long-range communications, albeit with low transmission rates and duty cycle constraints. Despite all this enthusiasm, challenges persist in LoRa networks, especially in terms of coverage, with the occurrence of problematic areas where communications are inconsistent, often referred to as shadow zones. The reasons are diverse, ranging from the urban propagation environment, physical obstruction to the network base station, or locations with significant electromagnetic attenuation, among others. In this context, this work focus is designing and testing a LoRaWAN based system that was implemented in a remote area for a street lighting utilisation. The paper describes the shadow zone and distance performance of the developed hardware/software, to investigate communication in unstable scenarios. The proposed system was designed for non-mobile devices that rely exclusively on LoRaWAN technology for communication and are mains powered. Moreover, the proposed system hardware is described as well as its alignment with street lighting requirements.