An autoconfiguration strategy for very large scale long range wide area network deployments in smart cities

Abstract

LoRa has proven to be an ideal solution for Internet of Things networks and applications that require long-distance communications, such as those related to smart cities or precision agriculture. Its low cost combined with the wide availability of LoRa-compatible devices make it possible to easily deploy a large number of sensors capable of collecting and transmitting key information for new services and applications. However, the process of adding new devices into a Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN) network represents a significant challenge on a large scale, as each device must be individually configured and manually registered to join the network. This manual approach is costly and impractical when it comes to deploying a very large number of devices. To address this problem, this paper proposes two deployment strategies (semi-automatic and automatic) to simplify and streamline the process of activating and registering LoRaWAN devices. These strategies facilitate the deployment of large-scale devices in smart cities, and their adoption can significantly enhance the deployment of LoRaWAN devices. Experimental results clearly demonstrate the benefits of our solution. Specifically, for 500 devices, the semi-automatic deployment is 3.75 times more efficient, and the automatic deployment is an impressive 394.87 times faster than the manual deployment.