Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN): An overview and its
importance in the world of IoT
Abhinanda Dutta, Abhishek Singh,
Graduate student, University of Rochester, ECE department
Abstract- The main issues faced by the low power
communication standards are its inability to
communicate over a fairly long distance. This paper
focuses on a fairly new connectivity protocol known
as the LoRa which is gaining importance in the
world of IoT for its capability to communicate over
a long range while exploiting the low power
advantages of the conventional LPWAN( Low
Power Wide Area Network) protocol. We have
discussed the LoRa standard here along with its
advantages over other protocols like Zigbee,
Bluetooth, Z-wave which till now are reigning the
low power wireless connectivity domain.
I. INTRODUCTION
The world of IoT(Internet of Things) is fairly new and
so are the communication protocols governing it. The
key power driving this whole IoT domain is the
different wireless communication standards. One of
the aspect of this communication standards that has
always intrigued the scientific community is to design
a standard which is built in a way to operate at a low
power while maintaining fairly long communication
range. Most of the protocols governing this domain
until now, have been successfully been able to exploit
the low power area but the communication range
achievable under those protocols are limited to a very
small region.
The potential of IoT can be further exploited if
the coverage field can be extended over a large area.
The main idea behind IoT is to offer an interconnected
network of devices with an unhindered flow of data. In
order to realize this potential, the communication
standard should be able to cover a wide range of area.
LoRa is a protocol under the LPWAN scheme
recently developed which is trying to address this issue
of communication range. LoRa is an acronym for Long
Range and it is promoted by the LoRa alliance.[1]The
LoRa physical layer is a proprietary of Semtech
technologies, but the MAC layer and the layers above
it known as LoRaWAN has been kept open.
LoRaWAN is maintained by LoRa Alliance.
LoRa scheme operates in the unlicensed Sub-
GHz band and provides wider coverage area as
compared to other LPWAN protocols such as Zigbee
and Bluetooth. The trade off in LoRa scheme is that
the data rate is reduced by a large magnitude. We have
discussed this in details in the following sections. In
the following sections we have briefly talked about the
fundamentals of the LoRa scheme. The main objective
of this paper is to discuss the different approaches
taken to analyse the performance of a LoRaWAN and
what are possible areas where this scheme can
improve.
II. LORA FUNDAMENTALS
The physical layer of LoRa scheme uses the CSS
(Chirp Spread Spectrum) modulation technique as
opposed to FSK (Frequency Shift Keying) modulation
used in most LPWAN protocols. [2]In CSS linear
variation of frequency chirps, wherein the frequency of
signal increases or decreases with time to encode the
message, due to which frequency offsets
Fig.1: [5] Chirp Spread Spectrum modulation
technique
between the receiver and the transmitter are equivalent
to timing offsets, easily eliminated in decoder.This
makes the system immune to Doppler Effect. The
LoRa transmitters costs less due to the fact that
Frequency offset can reach 20% of bandwidth without
impacting the receiver performance. Sensitivity is 130
dBm. The signal has pulse compression ability, so it
can be transmitted to a greater distance without
increasing the transmitted power and resistive to
multipath fading. Millimeter resolution can also be
achieved with CSS. This all properties outperforms all
other conventional modulation schemes.
[1]In LoRa, a symbol is coded in a long
series of Bits, which causes SNR to reduce to a value
which is required by receiver to decode the
information message correctly. In overall
communication environment, frequency bandwidth of
the wireless signal is maintained constant. The
possibility to trade throughput with coverage range or
energy consumption or link connection strength and
speed is done by altering the length of spreading code
at transmitter end which results in variable data rates.
Overall System works is implemented to
work in 915 MHz, 433 MHz and 169 MHz in United
States. In order to prevent severe interference between
devices communicating on same band LoRa follows
LBT commonly known as Listen Before Talk
technique which is a sort of carrier sense mechanism
which is an compulsory regulation which is needed to
be adopted by radio transmitters for practising duty
cycled transmission.
Fig. 2: Network topology of LORA scheme
[3]As shown in the diagram 2 LoRa uses a
star of star topology wherein the receiving devices are
connected via single hop LoRa. In which gateways is a
transparent bridge relaying messages between end
devices and a central network server in the backend.
Gateways are connected to the network server via
standard IP connections while end-devices use single-
hop wireless communication to one or many gateways.
All end-point communication is generally bi-
directional, but also supports operation such as
multicast enabling software upgrade over the air or
other mass distribution messages to reduce the on air
communication time.
The gateways relay messages between the end
devices and the Main Server. The gateways act as a
sort of relay/bridge and simply forward to their
associated Main Server all successfully decoded
messages sent by any end device, after adding some
information regarding the quality of the reception. The
Main Server is hence in charge of filtering duplicate
and unwanted packets, and of replying to the end
devices by choosing one of the in range gateways,
according to some criterion. The gateways are thus
totally transparent to the end devices, which are
logically connected directly to the Main Server.
The LoRaWAN specification defines three
device types.[4] Class A devices support bi-directional
communication between a device and a gateway.
Uplink messages can be sent at any time. The device
then opens two receive windows at specified times (1s
and 2s) after an uplink transmission. If the server does
not respond in either of these receive windows the next
opportunity will be after the next uplink transmission
from the device. The server can respond either in the
first receive window (situation 2 in the figure), or the
second receive window (situation 3 in the figure).
Class B devices extend Class A by adding scheduled
receive windows for downlink messages from the
server. Using time-synchronized beacons transmitted
by the gateway, the devices periodically open receive
windows. Class C devices extend Class A by keeping
the receive windows open unless they are transmitting,
as shown in the figure below. This allows for low-
latency communication but is many times more energy
consuming than Class A devices.
In the following sections we will discuss
the different performance analysis of the LORA
scheme.
III. LORA COVERAGE ANALYSIS
In the LORA scheme there is a trade off between the
coverage area and the data rate. This trade off is
managed by the spreading factor (SF). With higher
spreading factor the coverage area is high but the data
rate diminishes significantly. With a lower spreading
factor the coverage area reduces while there is a
significant increase in the data rate of the system.
Fig .3: [3] Map of LORA field test
Generally the SF of a LORA
system varies between 7 and 12. The data rate ranges
from 300 bps to 37.5 kbps depending on spreading
factor and channel bandwidth. [3] The effect of SF on
the packet transmission rate in a LORA system is
found to be directly proportional. Around 80%
successful packet transmissions was observed at a
distance of 2800m with a SF of 12.
The bit rate of
the LORA scheme can be computed by incorporating
the forward error correction (FEC) technique. [3]The
bit rate of the LORA scheme is given by
Rb = SF X (BW / 2SF) X CR
Here Rb is the bit rate of the system, SF is the
spreading factor, BW is the bandwidth and CR is the
Code rate of the system. It can be seen from this
equation that high delivery ratio using the high
spreading factor has the cost of a much lower bit rate,
as shown in the equation.
Fig. 4: [5] LoRa system cell coverage for Padova,
Italy. Worst case test.
[5]An experiment was carried out in the city of
Padova, where a LORA gateway was deployed to
analyse the successful packet transmission in a harsh
environment. It was seen that, in such harsh
propagation conditions, the LORA technology allows
to cover a cell of about 2 km of radius. However, the
connection at the cell edge is guaranteed only when
using the lowest bit rate (i.e., the longest spreading
sequence which provides maximum robustness), with
low margin for possible interference or to link budget
changes
IV. PATH LOSS IN LORAWAN
Since LoRa is primarily targeted for IoT applications
which involves a large number of applications which
are in motion, it is necessary for an analysis of the path
loss or the packet drop in a LoRa environment for it to
pass as an effective communication standard. [6] A
LoRa setup in the city of Oulu, Finland was created in
order to test the signal strength of LoRaWAN against
distance variation.
This experiment yielded an interesting result, showing
how the distance and the channel interference affects
the path loss.
This experiment was carried out in 2 parts rather in 2
different situations. Keeping the base station fixed at a
particular locations, the end nodes were mounted on a
car and on boat to measure the signal receptivity.
Fig. 8: Range vs Packet loss in a LoRa setup in Oulu
The presented results reveal that
within 2 km range from the base station, signal mostly
exceeds -100 dBm. However, 12 % of the 894
transmitted packets were lost. Among the reasons
which may have caused this are, line of sight blockade
by some obstacles and the interferences from other
radio systems (note, that no packets originating from
the LoRa devices other than the ones used for testing
were ever received during the experiments). In the 2-5
km range, the packet loss ratio does not increase
significantly and stayed below 15 %. For the
measurements made on the ground, the amount of
radio packets lost from a distance of 5-10 km was
about one third. Finally, 74% of the packets
transmitted from the ground from 10-15 km range
were lost. Note, that few packets were also received
from the distances exceeding 15 km (e.g., from
Kempele area), but the communication at such
distances is very opportunistic.
The starting point for the on-
water measurements was in the harbor located 5.1 km
southwest from the base station. The most distant point
from which the communication on water was still
possible was almost 30 km to the west from the base
station. On water, in the 15-30 km range 62 % of the
packets were successfully delivered. In the range of 5-
15 km, success rate was 69 %.

V. PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF LORAWAN
Fig. 5: LORA protocol stack
The term LoRa is usually used to define the physical
layer of the protocol. The layers above the physical
layer are open to development as described earlier. The
MAC protocol known as the LoRaWAN is built to use
the LoRa physical layer. It is designed mainly for
sensor networks, wherein sensors exchange packets
with the server with a low data rate and relatively long
time intervals (one transmission per hour or even
days).
Several aspects of the LoRaWAN has been
analysed as a part of performance evaluation technique
over the past few years. A single end device in a
LORA scheme was analysed for the throughput [8].
The testing environment was set up with 6 channel
each of 125 KHz and a spreading factor varying
between 7 and 12. 3 different payloads were used for
the analysis with the maximum payload being 51
bytes. Another important parameter worth mentioning
is that in this experiment no MAC commands were
sent, so the size of the MAC header was always 13
bytes
Fig. 6: [5] Throughput vs Spreading Factor for
different payloads
The interesting aspect of this experiment was
that a limitation of the LoRa scheme was discovered. It
was seen that at low packet sizes, the limiting factor
was not the channel duty cycle limitations, as could
have been expected, but the duration of the receive
windows
Fig. 7: [6] load vs collision rate comparison of LoRa
and ALOHA
[6]An analysis of channel capacity and the collision
rate of the LoRa scheme was carried out as a part of
the performance analysis. Since communication in
LoRa scheme is similar to ALOHA the results
obtained were similar to that of ALOHA protocol. The
only factor separating ALOHA protocol from LoRa is
that in LoRa we have a variable data rate due to the use
of CSS modulation technique.
However, the variable packet length
does not greatly impact the performance of
LoRaWAN, and all said and done, the observed
behavior is very close to that of pure ALOHA. The
maximum capacity usage is 18% of the channel
capacity and is reached for a link load of 0.48.
However, at this load, around 60% of the packets
transmitted are dropped because of collisions. The
results show that LoRaWAN is extremely sensitive to
the channel load, similar to ALOHA. The solution
implemented by usual network protocols, such as
802.11 or cellular networks, to help mitigate this
problem is CSMA.
VI. SECURITY ISSUES IN LORAWAN
The data encryption in LoRaWAN is done using a
shared key technique. The key is known both to the
NetServer and the specific node to which to the
NetServer is communicating. This sort of encryption is
known as the symmetric encryption technique and no
third party can have access to the key.
However, there are other areas are left to the
developers, which may lead to security vulnerabilities
being introduced into particular Lora instances. Certain
loopholes were observed in the key sharing technique
adopted in the LoRa scheme. [7] For example, this
technique is vulnerable to hardware attacks. The nodes
which store the keys only relevant to them. It is likely
given the range of hardware attacks available that an
attacker could recover the AppKey, NwkSKey and
AppSKey from a Node using for example side channel Data Rate 1–2 Mbit/s 0.3Kbps – 250 Kbps
analysis. This attack uses the variations in power 50Kbps
consumption or EM emissions from the transceiver
during AES encryption to determine the key that must
have been used. As an attacker with this key would be
able to produce correctly signed and encrypted
messages, the data coming from individual Nodes
should therefore be assumed to be potentially Bandwidth 2.4 GHz 915 MHz, 2.4 GHz
untrustworthy. 433 MHz ,
169 MHz
Another potential issue is how the Network
Server performs its decryption and signature checking. Network Star Star of star Mesh
Aside from introducing vulnerabilities in AES Topology Topology Topology
implementation, care should also be taken to perform
checking the MIC signature before decryption of the
message. If the FRM Payload is acted upon before the
MIC is checked, then it would be possible for an
attacker who had basic knowledge of the payload
Receiver -90 dBm -150 dBm -125 dBm
structure to manipulate the encrypted FRM Payload by
Sensitivity
flipping bits in the message. This could be performed
without knowledge of the keys.
Packet 79 single-hop Multi-hop
VII COMPARISON WITH OTHER PROTOCOLS Forwarding channels
(of 1MHz
The LPWAN domain covers a number of different each),
protocols. Most of our handheld devices come fitted 1600hops/s
with these small transreceivers that operate at very low
power. Essentially these protocols are meant to operate
within very small area where most of the usage is
confined to PCN (Personal Area Networks). However, Fig. 8: Comparison of LoRa with other protocols
in order to have a large interconnected network of
devices as envisioned by the IoT community it is The tabulated datasheet above gives us a quantified
necessary we design our protocols to have the same measure of the different areas where Lora differ from
power characteristics but a larger coverage area. As Bluetooth and Zigbee. One of the advantages which is
discussed previously LoRa gives us a considerable not mentioned over here is that using Chirp Spread
amount of flexibility over existing protocols such a Spectrum allows us to vary the data rate of the system.
Bluetooth or Zigbee. This is known as the Adaptive data rate system.
Basically, the power is varied according to the
In this section we have tried to transmitting data load. This saves a large amount of
showcase or rather tried to quantify the advantages of power and acts as a potential advantage over these
LoRa over these existing protocols. Apart from the other protocols.
inherent coverage area advantage there are certain
other areas where LoRa has shown better performance. VIII FUSION OF LORA AND IOT

From its inception till now LoRa has started blending

in well with IoT domain and this fusion has yielded
some interesting results. [8] Trimble’s IoT based water
Parameters Bluetooth LoRa ZigBee monitoring sensor series has implemented the LoRa
technology as a way to provide smart water sensing
capability to their existing system. The LoRa-equipped
Trimble’s Telog 41 Series includes five different
Coverage 10 meters 10–15 km 10 to 100 sensors, each customized for a specific use case:
in rural metres pressure monitoring, level monitoring, flow
areas, and (LoS) monitoring, pulse/event monitoring and rainfall
2–5 km in monitoring.
urban
areas The sensors work in combination with
software (either Cloud-hosted or on-premise) that has
been developed to provide utilities with a single
platform for smart water management and are designed
to relay data to the software in intervals from every
five minutes to 24 hours, depending on the use case.
This allows data to be monitored remotely, giving
companies access to near real-time data, including
alerts, alarms, advanced analytics and reporting. The
use of low-power LoRa Technology allows the sensors
to have a battery life of 5 years assuming 15-minute
transmission intervals.
[9] In the port of Cork in Ireland, a LoRa deployment
has been used to track shipping assets. Designed
by Net Feasa, a service provider for next-generation
IoT networks, the Port of Cork IoT network solution
enables LoRa-equipped sensors with Semtech’s
geolocation, placed in shipping containers, to detect
the opening and closing of the containers’ doors,
monitor the temperature of heat-sensitive cargo, and
provide end-to-end tracking of each container.
The information captured from these end
points is passed to LoRa-based gateways which
transmit the data to a network and application server
for processing, and providing real-time information
and automated alerts on cargo status to both merchants
and port personnel via computer or mobile device. The
sensors do not require GPS and use batteries that can
last for up to 20 years, making it a cost-effective
tracking solution for customers that use the Port of
Cork.
IX CONCLUSION
[3] Teena Rajan & Therese Yamuna Mahesh: C-Band
Chirp Spread Spectrum (CSS) Signal Generation
Using DDS-PLL Technique
[4]https://www.thethingsnetwork.org/wiki/LoRaWAN/
Overview
[5]Juha Petäjäjärvi, Konstantin Mikhaylov, Antti
Roivainen, Tuomo Hänninen and Marko Pettissalo On
the Coverage of LPWANs: Range Evaluation and
Channel Attenuation Model for LoRa Technology
[6] Jiazi Yi and Thomas Heide Clusen A Study of
LoRa: Long Range & Low Power Networks for the
Internet of Things
[7]https://labs.mwrinfosecurity.com/assets/BlogFiles/
mwri-LoRa-security-guide-1.2-2016-03-22.pdf
[8] Semtech LoRa Technology Used by Trimble for IoT
Water Monitoring Sensor Series. LoRa Technology used
in Trimble’s Telog 41 Series of smart water monitoring
solutions for utility companies
[9] Semtech LoRa Geolocation Used in Ireland’s Second
Busiest Port to Track Shipping Assets. Net Feasa Ltd.
successfully implements LoRaWAN™-based IoT
network for location and sensor services in the Port of
Cork

This paper is more of a conglomeration of the different

ideas and work that has been carried out in this area
and we have presented a summary of LoRa here. We
have tried to cover almost all the aspects that is making
LoRa an enviable protocol and challenging the
limitations that we face with the existing wireless
communication technologies.

Since it is a fairly new technology, most of the work

that is being carried out in this area are for research
and eventual enhancement of this protocol. We believe
that we still have to wait some 5 to 6 years or so until
this protocol can be fully commercialized.

REFERENCES

[1] Marco Centenaro, Lorenzo Vangelista,

Andrea Zanella, and Michele Zorzi, Long-Range
Communications in Unlicensed Bands:the Rising Stars
in the IoT and Smart City Scenarios

[2] Aloÿs Augustin , Jiazi Yi, Thomas Heide Clausen,

William Mark Townsley: A Study of LoRa: Long
Range & Low Power Networks for the Internet of
Things