A LoRaWAN Module for ns-3: Implementation and Evaluation

Long Range (LoRa) communication has been proposed to connect massive numbers of devices in large areas. LoRa itself is a physical layer technique. Together with the MAC layer solution LoRaWAN to realize IoT, they have attracted increasing attention from both industry and academia. In this work, we present our implemented LoRaWAN module for ns-3, to help boost the research in this rising area. Our implementation is compliant with the class A of the LoRaWAN 1.0 specification. It is highly configurable and thus can be easily used to exploit the impact of different parameters on LoRaWAN's performance. Our implemented flexible backbone architecture also allows for the easy integration of new protocols to improve the network performance. In the past two years, we have used this module to develop new protocols and algorithms to improve LoRaWAN's performance, in terms of reliability, capture effect, scalability, power consumption, among others. Our research outcomes have demonstrated the usefulness, flexibility, and configurability of the proposed LoRaWAN ns-3 module. We have made the source code of our module publicly available(1).