Abstract
Since the appearance of 5G, Internet of Things (IoT) has gained an increased interest, with multiple technologies emerging and converging to cover different user needs. One of the biggest challenges today is to have global IoT coverage, ensuring seamless communication with IoT devices placed in rural and even remote areas. Satellite constellations, and in particular CubeSats orbiting in Low Earth Orbit, can provide a solution to these challenges. Out of the technologies available, LoRa (Long Range) has a great potential for implementation in space-to-Earth satellite communications. As the space-to-Earth channel is different with respect to the conventional Earth-to-Earth one, it is important to asses the capabilities of LoRa in this new environment. This paper presents a study of different LoRa device configurations to identify the constrains for each one and determine which one is better for particular mission requirements. Also, the effect of ionospheric scintillation is assessed with a SDR-based (Software-Defined Radio) test set-up that evaluates the performance of this technology against with Humprey's ionospheric scintillation model. This phenomena produces deep signal intensity fadings and phase fluctuations in equatorial regions, and mainly phase fluctuations in high latitudes. The obtained metrics are the received power and the packet delivery ratio as a function of the intensity scintillation index, and show the robustness of the LoRa modulation in these new environments.
Highlights
Internet of Things (IoT) aims at connecting devices placed around the globe for environmental monitoring, safety purposes, amongst others
WORK This study has evaluated the limitations of the LoRa technology when using it in space-to-Earth satellite communications
This is first done by means of a theoretical analysis, where the link budget is calculated considering the channel model in space-to-Earth communications
Summary
Internet of Things (IoT) aims at connecting devices (or ‘‘things’’) placed around the globe for environmental monitoring, safety purposes, amongst others. The analysis considers four different satellite configurations These have been selected to increase the transmitted power, receiving gain and the directivity of the antenna, to have link budget in the longer ranges experienced in satellite communications. An alternative to directive antennas is to have the LoRa transceiver with an RF-FE and a monopole antenna, which corresponds to the MON+RF-FE configuration This configuration, represented as a green line, is better in terms of link budget with respect to the other two already presented, and it does not require precise attitude pointing. Having the configuration with both the RF-FE and a directive antenna allows using the maximum channel capacity that the LoRa modulation can provide with the fixed bandwidth
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