Towards multi-hop real-time communications over LoRa networks for industrial applications

Industrial applications that require low power consumption and wide coverage range may benefit from the adoption of the LoRa communication technology. Unfortunately, the Medium Access Control protocol standardized for LoRa, i.e., LoRaWAN, is not suitable for industrial contexts, as it lacks support for real-time flows. Moreover, to achieve a high number of message transmissions over LoRa while keeping low duty cycle values, a multi-hop communication protocol is required. This work discusses how to combine the support for real-time flows with multi-hop transmissions over LoRa, outlining the basic design choices. A preliminary assessment based on analytical calculations is also provided.