An effective method for Data Aggregation Point placement in LoRaWAN network for smart metering service

Electric grids have been restructured with Smart Grids (SGs), and the deployment of Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) systems is a fundamental part of this process. An AMI system consists of Smart Meters (SMs) that collect energy consumption data and send it to the utility company through Data Aggregation Points (DAPs). Thus, methods to determine the appropriate quantity and positions of DAPs become necessary. In this context, this paper proposes a method called DAP Placement (DPlace), which determines the minimum number of DAPs and applies the Fuzzy C-Means algorithm to position the DAPs at coordinates that enhance the successful reception of packets, ensuring that smart metering applications can adequately transmit data through a Long Range Wide-Area Network (LoRaWAN) network. The proposed method is compared to three state-of-the-art solutions through simulations, and the results show that the DPlace method reduces the required number of DAPs by up to 37.04% while achieving communication performance – evaluated through metrics such as packet delivery ratio and delay – similar to related methods, even with less DAPs.