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Almuhaya, MAM, 2025. Towards efficient and scalable LoRaWAN enabling Internet of Things. PhD, Nottingham Trent University.
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Abstract
Over the past two decades, researchers in the field of wireless sensor networks (WSN) have developed an extensive array of hardware, communication protocols, operating systems, and applications to tackle the fundamental challenges posed by resource-constrained devices, limited energy supplies, and adverse Internet of Things communication requirements. Nevertheless, research on Wireless Sensor Networks has mostly focused on hardware with restricted capabilities such as Bluetooth, ZigBee, Wi-Fi. The advancement of wireless communication and embedded technology presents a new opportunity to address the persistent challenges of scaling, setting up, and sustaining a wireless sensor network (WSN). The majority of low power wide area network (LPWAN) solutions use collision-prone, uncoordinated channel access techniques to save energy. As the number of devices grows by hundreds, and thousands, this problem becomes worse due to high collisions, and LPWANs become less scalable. One-hop networks with several sensor nodes from LoRa are promising technologies due to new low-power, long-range communication and low cost. This thesis investigates the latest advancements in low-power, long-range (LoRa) wireless communication and the main issues Scalability and power consumption, quality service, reliability and approaches analysis provided.
LoRaWAN, a multi-access control protocol for LoRa, is based on the Alloa protocol, which experiences significant collision rates in big networks. This thesis presents an in-depth investigation of LoRa’s performance and evaluates the unique features of LoRa, including its spreading factors, bandwidth, transmission power, carrier activity detection, and the newly introduced multiband support. Additionally, we analyse LoRa’s performance under different conditions. Using these distinctive features to construct two new enhancements to LoRaWAN, Multi-band Multi-Data rate MBMD-LoRa and Multi-Band Multi-Zone ZBMD-LoRa on the Medium Access Control (MAC) layer, both of which improve the scalability of LoRaWAN. The proposed technique enhances LoRaWAN’s performance, enabling power efficiency and extending the Internet architecture to LPWANs.
In LoRa technology, packets can be received concurrently by multiple gateways. Subsequently, the network server selects the packet with the highest Receiver Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI). However, this method can lead to the exhaustion of channel availability on the gateways. The optimisation of configuration parameters to reduce collisions and enhance network throughput in multi-gateway LoRaWAN remains an unresolved challenge. This thesis introduces a novel low-complexity model for ZBMG-LoRa, categorising nodes into quarter-annulus groups called sub-zones based on their respective gateways. If the node moves to a different location, its setting will be reevaluated to obtain the setting that is suitable for that new location (subzone) in the coverage area. This categorisation allows for the implementation of optimal settings for each node’s subzone, thereby facilitating effective communication and addressing the identified issue. By deriving key performance metrics (e.g., network throughput, energy efficiency, and probability of effective delivery) from configuration parameters and network size, communication reliability is maintained. Optimal transmission power configurations and spreading factors increase the throughput by more than 20% for LoRaWAN networks with multiple gateways.
The performance of the physical(PHY) and MAC layers of LoRaWAN was analysed, and the mechanism that controls the adaptive data rate was also taken into consideration. In this investigation, it was discovered that the rate of data extraction among devices was unfair, with the devices that were closest to the gateway and those that used high data rates being given preference. The performance decays further when some devices use their energy sooner than others, owing to the disparate allocation of spreading factors, hence reducing the network’s lifetime. In the final work package, this thesis proposed a novel fair frame scheduling method for allocating service functions to nodes in six parallel frames distributed in a timely manner on six frequency band channels with the objective of minimising total data collection time while adhering to radio duty cycle constraints. The result shows that fair frame FF-LoRa minimises the length of longer frame (time a round) to 25% approximately, which makes the farthest device more power efficient and leads to enhancement of the network lifespan.
| Item Type: | Thesis |
|---|---|
| Creators: | Almuhaya, M.A.M. |
| Contributors: | Name Role NTU ID ORCID |
| Date: | February 2025 |
| Divisions: | Schools > School of Science and Technology |
| Record created by: | Jeremy Silvester |
| Date Added: | 01 Aug 2025 12:39 |
| Last Modified: | 01 Aug 2025 12:39 |
| URI: | https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/54098 |
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7441-604XActions (login required)
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