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Citywide LoRa Network Deployment and Operation: Measurements, Analysis, and Implications

Authors:

Jun ZhangAuthors Info & Claims

SenSys '23: Proceedings of the 21st ACM Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems

Pages 362 - 375

https://doi.org/10.1145/3625687.3625796

Published: 26 April 2024 Publication History

Abstract

LoRa, as a representative Low-Power Wide-Area Network (LPWAN) technology, holds tremendous potential for various city and industrial applications. However, as there are few real large-scale deployments, it is unclear whether and how well LoRa can eventually meet its prospects. In this paper, we demystify the real performance of LoRa by deploying and measuring a citywide LoRa network, named CityWAN, which consists of 100 gateways and 19,821 LoRa end nodes, covering an area of 130 km² for 12 applications. Our measurement focuses on the following perspectives: (i) Performance of applications running on the citywide LoRa network; (ii) Infrastructure efficiency and deployment optimization; (iii) Physical layer signal features and link performance; (iv) Energy profiling and cost estimation for LoRa applications. The results reveal that LoRa performance in urban settings is bottlenecked by the prevalent blind spots, and there is a gap between the gateway efficiency and network coverage for the infrastructure deployment. Besides, we find that LoRa links at the physical layer are susceptible to environmental variations, and LoRa and other LPWANs show diverse costs for different scenarios. Our measurement provides insights for large-scale LoRa network deployment and also for future academic research to fully unleash the potential of LoRa.

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Cited By

Hao HXi WKuster AGamage AXia X(2025)MC-LoRa: Multi-node Concurrent Localization for LoRaWAN Indoors and OutdoorsProceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies10.1145/37122799:1(1-32)Online publication date: 3-Mar-2025
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3712279
Azevedo JMendonça F(2024)A Critical Review of the Propagation Models Employed in LoRa SystemsSensors10.3390/s2412387724:12(3877)Online publication date: 15-Jun-2024
https://doi.org/10.3390/s24123877
Yu SXia XZhang ZHou NZheng YShu YLiu JTan RHe YChen J(2024)FDLoRa: Tackling Downlink-Uplink Asymmetry with Full-duplex LoRa GatewaysProceedings of the 22nd ACM Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems10.1145/3666025.3699338(281-294)Online publication date: 4-Nov-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3666025.3699338
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Citywide LoRa Network Deployment and Operation: Measurements, Analysis, and Implications
1. Networks
  1. Network performance evaluation
    1. Network measurement

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Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

SenSys '23: Proceedings of the 21st ACM Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems

November 2023

574 pages

ISBN:9798400704147

DOI:10.1145/3625687

General Chair:
Rasit Eskicioglu,
Program Chair:
Polly Huang,
Program Co-chair:
Neal Patwari

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike International 4.0 License.

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Publication History

Published: 26 April 2024

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National Key R&D Program of China
National Natural Science Foundation of China

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SenSys '23

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SenSys '23: 21st ACM Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems

November 12 - 17, 2023

Istanbul, Turkiye

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Overall Acceptance Rate 198 of 990 submissions, 20%

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Cited By

Hao HXi WKuster AGamage AXia X(2025)MC-LoRa: Multi-node Concurrent Localization for LoRaWAN Indoors and OutdoorsProceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies10.1145/37122799:1(1-32)Online publication date: 3-Mar-2025
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3712279
Azevedo JMendonça F(2024)A Critical Review of the Propagation Models Employed in LoRa SystemsSensors10.3390/s2412387724:12(3877)Online publication date: 15-Jun-2024
https://doi.org/10.3390/s24123877
Yu SXia XZhang ZHou NZheng YShu YLiu JTan RHe YChen J(2024)FDLoRa: Tackling Downlink-Uplink Asymmetry with Full-duplex LoRa GatewaysProceedings of the 22nd ACM Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems10.1145/3666025.3699338(281-294)Online publication date: 4-Nov-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3666025.3699338
Li CRen YTong SSiam SZhang MWang JLiu YCao ZOkoshi TKo JLiKamWa R(2024)ChirpTransformer: Versatile LoRa Encoding for Low-power Wide-area IoTProceedings of the 22nd Annual International Conference on Mobile Systems, Applications and Services10.1145/3643832.3661861(479-491)Online publication date: 3-Jun-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3643832.3661861
Ren YSun WDu JZeng HDong YZhang MChen SLiu YLi TCao ZGanesan DLane NShi W(2024)Demeter: Reliable Cross-soil LPWAN with Low-cost Signal Polarization AlignmentProceedings of the 30th Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking10.1145/3636534.3649358(230-245)Online publication date: 29-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3636534.3649358
Yu FZheng XMa YLiu LMa H(2024)Resolve Cross-Channel Interference for LoRa2024 IEEE 44th International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS)10.1109/ICDCS60910.2024.00099(1027-1038)Online publication date: 23-Jul-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICDCS60910.2024.00099

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