1-Bit STBC-LoRa Modulation for Extreme Environment Communications

Abstract

Long Range (LoRa) technology is highly respected for its high reception sensitivity and low cost, but its performance degrades significantly under hard-to-reach areas and extreme conditions. For this reason, we design an innovative 1-bit space-time block coding LoRa (1-bit STBC-LoRa) modulation in this letter. The 1-bit STBC-LoRa cleverly utilizes upchirp or downchirp signal to transmit 1-bit information and incorporates STBC technique to significantly reduce the bit error rate (BER). Then, we explore the theoretical performance of the 1-bit STBC-LoRa under Rayleigh fading channels and derive a closed-form BER approximation expression under perfect channel state information (CSI) estimation. Simulation results verify the accuracy of the theoretical analysis and the advantages of the proposed modulation scheme in terms of communication reliability.