Simulative Performance Study of Slotted Aloha for LoRaWAN Channel Access

Future Internet of Things deployments generate a multitude of new challenges and opportunities. While 5G networks promise massive throughput rates with ultra low delays, many verticals in the areas of Industry 4.0, Smart City, or Smart Agriculture only transmit tiny amounts of data and instead demand high energy efficiency. This is addressed by access technologies like Low Power Wide Area Networks being complementary to high performance 5G networks. Especially Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN) promises transmissions across long distances with low energy requirements with the drawback of unreliable transmission due to potential message collisions through random channel access. For that reason, a broad parameter study simulation for LoRaWAN channel access with slotted Aloha is presented for real world scenarios and influences like clock drifts or cross traffic. The key impact factors of this channel access approach are studied with focus on the collision probability in various scenarios and simulation results are compared to the current state of the art. The contribution of this work are guidelines for parameter settings in a LoRaWAN with slotted Aloha channel access and performance comparisons for different settings. This information is crucial to scale and operate future LoRaWANs.

Automated summary

Future Internet of Things deployments face various challenges and opportunities. While 5G networks offer advantages in terms of high throughput and ultra-low latency, certain verticals require low energy consumption for transmitting small amounts of data. Low Power Wide Area Networks serve as a complement to high-performance 5G networks. This study focuses on the parameter study simulation for LoRaWAN channel access using slotted Aloha, providing guidelines for parameter settings and performance comparisons.