On LoRaWAN Scalability: Empirical Evaluation of Susceptibility to Inter-Network Interference

摘要

Appearing on the stage quite recently, the Low Power Wide Area Networks(LPWANs) are currently getting much of attention. In the current paper we studythe susceptibility of one LPWAN technology, namely LoRaWAN, to theinter-network interferences. By means of excessive empirical measurementsemploying the certified commercial transceivers, we characterize the effect ofmodulation coding schemes (known for LoRaWAN as data rates (DRs)) of atransmitter and an interferer on probability of successful packet deliverywhile operating in EU 868 MHz band. We show that in reality the transmissionswith different DRs in the same frequency channel can negatively affect eachother and that the high DRs are influenced by interferences more severely thanthe low ones. Also, we show that the LoRa-modulated DRs are affected by theinterferences much less than the FSK-modulated one. Importantly, the presentedresults provide insight into the network-level operation of the LoRa LPWANtechnology in general, and its scalability potential in particular. The resultscan also be used as a reference for simulations and analyses or for definingthe communication parameters for real-life applications.