Abstract
The emergence of Low-Power Wide-Area Network (LPWAN) technologies allowed the development of revolutionary Internet Of Things (IoT) applications covering large areas with thousands of devices. However, connectivity may be a challenge for non-line-of-sight indoor operation or for areas without good coverage. Technologies such as LoRa and Sigfox allow connectivity for up to 50,000 devices per cell, several devices that may be exceeded in many scenarios. To deal with these problems, this paper introduces a new multi-hop protocol, called JMAC, designed for improving long range wireless communication networks that may support monitoring in scenarios such smart cities or Industry 4.0. JMAC uses the LoRa radio technology to keep low consumption and extend coverage area, and exploits the potential mesh behaviour of wireless networks to improve coverage and increase the number of supported devices per cell. JMAC is based on predictive wake-up to reach long lifetime on sensor devices. Our proposal was validated using the OMNeT++ simulator to analyze how it performs under different conditions with promising results.
Highlights
Since the development of the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm a few years ago, related technologies have dramatically evolved to turn IoT into a widely spread reality
There is a general consensus about what characteristics are desirable in Low-Power Wide-Area Network (LPWAN) [2]: (i) low power consumption, needed for batteries; (ii) inexpensive chips; (iii) easy and scalable deployment; (iv) ALOHA with single hop routing as Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol; (v) secured data; and (vi) robust radio modulation to minimize the impact of channel fading
The JMAC protocol works with LoRa, a lower physical layer described in Section 2.1, to offer a suitable multi-hop solution or the upper networking layer
Summary
Since the development of the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm a few years ago, related technologies have dramatically evolved to turn IoT into a widely spread reality. Sensors 2020, 20, 6893 devices which generate a small data flow, or LTE-M [10], a wider bandwidth option for applications which frequently require to exchange high volumes of data Most of these technologies are currently used in many situations and support an only single hop communication. This means that for large areas it is necessary to deploy infrastructure for unlicensed technologies, or to get a subscription to a network operator. Simulator [11] that behaves as close as possible to the real behaviour of LoRa, which we coined as FLoRaPHY We needed from this new software module to check the behaviour and scalability of the new protocol.
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