Designing, Building, and Characterizing Large-Scale LoRa Networks for Smart City Applications

Abstract

LoRa, as a representative Low-Power Wide-Area Network (LPWAN) technology, holds tremendous potential for various Internet of Things (IoT) applications. However, as there are few real large-scale deployments, it is unclear whether and how well LoRa can eventually meet its prospects. In this paper, we demystify the real performance of LoRa by deploying LoRa systems in both campus-scale testbeds and citywide applications. Our LoRa network consisting of 100 gateways and 19,821 LoRa end nodes, covering an area of 130 km2 for 12 applications. Our measurement focuses on following perspectives: (i) Coverage performance of the LoRa network; (ii) Gateway efficiency and deployment optimization; (iii) Validation of two LoRa optimization mechanisms. The results reveal that LoRa performance in urban settings is bottlenecked by the prevalent blind spots, and there is a gap between the gateway efficiency and network coverage for gateway deployment. Our measurement provides insights for large-scale LoRa network deployment and also for future academic research to fully unleash the potential of LoRa.