An Energy-Efficient LoRa Multi-Hop Protocol through Preamble Sampling

Recent works have focused on utilizing LoRa to establish long-range and low-power connections between internet of things (IoT) nodes and gateways. A multi-hop scheme opens opportunities to greatly increase coverage in situations with adverse propagation effects or thin gateway deployment. In this work, we propose a multi-hop LoRa-based protocol tailored to battery-powered IoT devices. The protocol uses a combination of preamble sampling and dynamic payload aggregation to improve energy efficiency. In contrast to prior work, a fine-grained energy model of the devices is considered, impacting the design choices in all protocol layers, i.e., application, medium access control (MAC), and routing layer. The protocol is implemented in C and made public in open source. A first experiment indicates a high packet delivery ratio and showcases the dynamic aggregation feature.

Automated summary

Recent research focused on utilizing LoRa for long-range and low-power connections in the Internet of Things (IoT). A multi-hop LoRa-based protocol is proposed, tailored to battery-powered IoT devices, using preamble sampling and dynamic payload aggregation to improve energy efficiency. The protocol considers a fine-grained energy model impacting all protocol layers. The implementation in C and openness of the protocol are demonstrated in a successful experiment.