LoRa Communication as a Solution for Real-Time Monitoring of IoT Devices at UNICAMP

Abstract

The advent of the Internet of Things (IoT) has been speeding up the development of information technologies, especially, in traditional knowledge areas. However, one of the main challenges of the IoT is the real-time communication, especially in long-range scenarios. A continuous communication guarantees the precision and reliability of the sampled data, and in turn, the analyses made from them. As IoT applications require different communication patterns, in this paper, the Long-Range (LoRa) communication is assessed as a solution for real-time monitoring of IoT devices at State University of Campinas (UNICAMP). LoRa can provide low power, long range, and high reliability. Datasheets indicate that LoRa can present a range of 15 km, but without specifying the environmental conditions, devices parameters, bandwidth, spreading factor, coding rate, transmission frequency and so on. In this work, several tests were performed in the UNICAMP campus considering different distances, modulation settings, and data packet sizes. Results highlight how LoRa communication enables the use of IoT devices within the campus with real-time communications, guaranteeing proper reliability.