Implementation and Performance Evaluation of LoRaWAN in Real Environment of Agriculture

Abstract

Low Power Wide Area Networks are designed with a focus on Internet of Things applications that demand a transmission in the order of kilometers. In this paper, we present a performance assessment of LoRa technology and the LoRaWAN communication protocol as a function of the distance between the nodes, and as a function of the spectral spread factor (SF). For the evaluation, we implemented two real monitoring applications for livestock and beekeeping. The systems allows users to follow the monitored data through the Internet. The experiments show that using SF at 12 reduced packet losses by 50% compared to SF at 7, even on greatest distances evaluated.