Analysis of LoRa Parameters in Real-World Communication

Low Power Wide Area Network (LP-WAN) technologies found their usage in the Internet of Things (IoT) systems due to their low power consumption and long-range, with low data rates as a compromise. One of the most utilized LP-WAN technologies that operates in unlicensed spectrum is LoRa (Long Range). The description of other LP-WAN technologies (Narrowband IoT, Sigfox, and LTE-M) and their comparison with LoRa are presented in the paper. Operating in an unlicensed spectrum makes the possibility of the interference grow, which is handled by LoRa’s chirp spread spectrum modulation. In LoRa communication, spreading factor (SF) has the most impact on energy consumption, time on air, and coverage area. Influence of the SF on communication parameters such as signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), received signal strength indicator (RSSI) and time on air (ToA) is analyzed using over 6500 LoRa messages gathered in the test network in Croatia. The analysis results showed the dependencies between SF, RSSI, and SNR and between theoretical ToA and the measured one.