On the Use of Backoff Algorithms in Slotted ALOHA LoRaWAN Networks

Abstract

LoRaWAN is one of the most promising standards for IoT networking. Slotted ALOHA has been recently proposed as LoRaWAN MAC protocol, in an effort to achieve a performance improvement. However, as of today, the performance of backoff algorithms in a LoRaWAN environment has not been studied. Furthermore, critical performance metrics, such as queueing delay, remain to be evaluated. This paper explores the use of six backoff schemes in a Slotted-ALOHA-based LoRaWAN network. Their performance is studied via extensive simulation results, under low, medium and high load conditions by using delay, throughput and packet loss rate as performance metrics. Finally, the use of each backoff scheme in the LoRaWAN environment is extensively discussed in the light of the above simulation results and major conclusions are extracted.