Ensuring k-coverage in Low-Power Wide Area Networks for Internet of Things

Abstract

Low-Power Wide Area Networks (LPWANs) promise to enable nationwide low-power connectivity to Internet of Things (IoT) devices. While transmission ranges meet expectations, concerns on the packet delivery ratio are voiced. Receiver-side diversity is often thought as a solution to improve on delivery ratio, as well as an enabler to the geolocation of devices. In this context, we study the infrastructure density required to achieve k-coverage of the IoT devices, which preludes k-reception. To that purpose, we make use of k-order Voronoi diagram to compute an estimate of the gateway density in reference deployment setups: dense urban, urban and rural networks. We thus provide insights on the feasibility of k-coverage deployment in those scenarios.