Assessment of LoRa Signal Strength in a Building Environment

Technological progress brings new tools to help society’s development. In this context, the Internet of Things (IoT) helps to advance modern society. By connecting everyday objects and devices to the Internet, IoT enables benefits such as efficiency and automation, healthcare, environmental sustainability, safety, security, and data-driven decision-making. One of the possible technologies for devices’ communication is LoRa, a wireless technology designed for the IoT that allows devices to communicate over long ranges using little battery power. This makes it useful for situations where it is needed to connect many devices spread out over a large area, like in smart cities or industrial settings. This paper aims to verify and evaluate the LoRa communication signal loss in a building environment. For this evaluation, we analyzed data collected through experiments with LoRa links, considering different distances and configurations. So, we could verify the behavior of the signal strength and signal-to-noise ratio as a function of the spectral spreading factor and the distance between transmitter and receiver.