A LoRaWAN Network Architecture with MQTT2MULTICAST

Abstract

In this work, an architecture for IoT networks oriented towards environmental sustainability is presented. Due to the suitability of its characteristics in terms of coverage, power and support of a large number of devices, an enhanced LoRaWAN network has been chosen as the basis for this proposal. The architecture is completed with the virtualization of the different LoRaWAN network entities and the usage of a software-defined network for their interconnection. The publication and subscription to environmental data is carried out by using the MQTT protocol. MQTT has been optimized thanks to the use of the SDN network and the use of edge computing resources, which allows multicasting of published data. Thanks to our developed MQTT2MULTICAST protocol, latency is improved by approx. 90% and the traffic load within the SDN network is reduced by 55%. An scalability analysis shows that this solution is able to support tens of thousands of LoRaWAN gateways. The proposed architecture has been implemented using commercial equipment as a proof of concept.