Poster Abstract: Evaluation of a LoRa Mesh Wireless Networking System Supporting Time-Critical Transmission and Data Lost Recovery

This paper evaluates a LoRa mesh networking system for large-area monitoring of sensor applications. A prior study [1] proposed a LoRa-based wireless mesh network that supported periodic data collection. In this study, we further evaluated how data recovery mechanisms and time-critical data transmission affect periodic data communication, and a data transmission recovery mechanism was developed to recover lost data. Additionally, in emergency situations (e.g., detecting fire or alarm events), the sensor's data must be immediately sent to the control center. In a LoRa mesh network, these time-critical data packets, called non-periodic packets (NPPs), are designed to minimize transmission delays. We deployed 20 nodes on our university campus to form a LoRa mesh network, and the system achieved an average 99.99% packet delivery ratio with the data recovery mechanism for periodic reporting data. For NPPs, the average transmission delays achieved were 2.284 seconds, 4.597 seconds, and 6.75 seconds to deliver data to the gateway in one-hop, two-hop, and three-hop scenarios, respectively.