Performance Analysis of LoRaWAN for Indoor Application

Abstract

Revolution of Internet of Things (IoT) demands specific technology to handle data transfer with low power consumption with a wide coverage network. There are several technologies that had been developed under Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN). Generally, the existing technologies of LPWAN only cover a short distance in a wide area network and it will limit the performance of IoT applications. Thus, Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN) is introduced to address the setback of LPWAN. LoRaWAN uses Long Range (LoRa) modulation to provide long range data communication with less power consumption. It is envisaged that these features could enhance the performance of IoT infrastructures. In this paper, LoRaWAN performance is analyzed to see the feasibility of LoRaWAN for indoor application. The study was conducted by using a multichannel LoRa gateway and several LoRa end nodes placed in different floors in Tower 2, Engineering Complex, Universiti Tekbnologi MARA, Shah Alam. The performance study was carried out in terms of packet losses, data rates and communication range. The results show that, the signal strength of LoRaWAN is suitable for indoor usage.