Energy-Efficient LoRaWAN for Industry 4.0 Applications

Thanks to its inherent capabilities (such as fairly long radio coverage with extremely low power consumption), long-range wide area network (LoRaWAN) can support a wide spectrum of low-rate use-cases in Industry 4.0. In this article, both plain and energy harvesting (EH) industrial environments are considered to study the performance of LoRa radios for industrial automation. In the first instance, a model is presented to investigate LoRaWAN in Industry 4.0 in terms of battery life, battery replacement cost, and damage penalty. Then, the EH potential, available within an Industry 4.0, is highlighted to demonstrate the impact of harvested energy on the battery life and sensing interval of LoRa motes deployed across a production facility. The key outcome of these investigations is the cost trade-off analysis between battery replacement and damage penalty along different sensing intervals which demonstrates a linear increase in aggregate cost up to 1500 pound in case of 5 min sensing interval in the plain (nonenergy harvesting) industrial environment while it tends to decrease after a certain interval up to five times lower in EH scenarios. In addition, the carbon emissions due to the presence of LoRa motes and the annual CO2 emission savings per node have been recorded up to 3 kg/kWh when fed through renewable energy sources. The analysis presented herein could be of great significance toward a green industry with cost and energy efficiency optimization.

Automated summary

LoRaWAN technology shows great potential in industrial automation, supporting a wide range of low-rate applications. This study examines the performance of LoRa radios in both plain and energy harvesting industrial environments, revealing that energy harvesting can significantly reduce overall costs. Furthermore, powering LoRa motes with renewable energy can lead to substantial reductions in carbon emissions.