Design and Performance Analysis of LoRa Internet of Things Terminal for Multi-vendor Satellite Constellation

Abstract

Combining Internet of Things (IoT) with Long Range (LoRa) networks opens a whole new world of possibilities. In an ever-evolving world with lots of data, the need for global coverage has rapidly increased. This paper looks at the design of a novel IoT device capable of directly communicating with any satellite as well as evaluation of the uplink/downlink tests. Using orbital simulations, the region coverage of single satellite is compared with a multi-vendor satellite constellation as well as the daily access to evaluate the revisit time for continuous data transmission round-the-clock. Directly communicating with the constellation of satellites eliminates the need of the multiple IoT gateways for establishing connectivity to every satellite with an average regular pass at 10-minute intervals.