Empirical propagation performance evaluation of LoRa for indoor environment

Wireless sensors are increasingly being used for smart Buildings. LoRa is a chirp spread spectrum (CSS) technology. Its CSS modulation provides wide bandwidth, increased processing gain and higher receiver sensitivity. Propagation analysis of this long-range low power wireless platform is essential to make it a prevailing technology of choice for IoT. This paper empirically evaluates the indoor propagation performance of LoRa. The practical measurements were critically analyzed against four propagation models; ITU site generic, log-distance, multi-wall and 3D ray tracing. Data was collected in the Hanover building at Glasgow Caledonian University using the LoRa transceivers. The aims of this research were (1) to assess the indoor propagation performance of LoRa technology and (2) to identify the model that best describes the indoor propagation of LoRa. The study concluded that multi-wall has the best overall performance amongst the models. This research work will facilitate the link budget design, network implementation and coverage diagnosis in similar indoor scenarios.