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. 2021 Jun 24;21(13):4314.
doi: 10.3390/s21134314.

A LoRa-Based Mesh Network for Peer-to-Peer Long-Range Communication

Riccardo Berto  1 , Paolo Napoletano  1 , Marco Savi  1
Affiliations

A LoRa-Based Mesh Network for Peer-to-Peer Long-Range Communication

Riccardo Berto et al. Sensors (Basel). .

Abstract

LoRa is a long-range and low-power radio technology largely employed in Internet of Things (IoT) scenarios. It defines the lower physical layer while other protocols, such as LoRaWAN, define the upper layers of the network. A LoRaWAN network assumes a star topology where each of the nodes communicates with multiple gateways which, in turn, forward the collected data to a network server. The main LoRaWAN characteristic is the central role of the gateways; however, in some application scenarios, a much lighter protocol stack, relying only on node capabilities and without the presence of gateways, can be more suitable. In this paper, we present a preliminary study for realizing a LoRa-based mesh network, not relying on LoRaWAN, that implements a peer-to-peer communication between nodes, without the use of gateways, and extends node reachability through multi-hop communication. To validate our investigations, we present a hardware/software prototype based on low-power-consumption devices, and we preliminarily assess the proposed solution.

Keywords: LoRa; ad hoc networks; mesh networking; peer-to-peer networking.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Proposed LoRa-based stack for peer-to-peer communication.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Peer-to-peer LoRa-based mesh network with multi-hop capabilities.
Figure 3
Figure 3
One of the nodes of the network, complete with its antenna.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Single-hop delivery time evaluation (Table 1).
Figure 5
Figure 5
Two-hop delivery time evaluation (Table 1).
Figure 6
Figure 6
Experimental configuration for transmission efficiency assessment.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Transmission efficiency with different FreeRTOS queue sizes. (a) Without acknowledgment. (b) With acknowledgment.
Figure 8
Figure 8
Urbanization of the northern Milan area, where the test took place.
Figure 9
Figure 9
Single-hop communication efficiency at different distances.
Figure 10
Figure 10
No. of intermediate nodes to ensure no-loss multi-hop communication.
Figure 11
Figure 11
End-to-end delivery time in the case of no-loss multi-hop communication.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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