LoRaWAN at the Core of a Smart City
Field Trial for Sensor and LoRa Communication Implementation
Limit Testing for LoRaWAN in Lisbon
Sensors were attached to underground containers (RU) at the three locations of ISEL, Spacio Shopping and Belém in Lisbon to test the capabilites of LoRa technology in short (100m), medium (1km), and long-range (5km) communications respectively.
LoRaWAN technology and LoRa gateways were chosen because of their low energy consumption. In field trials, the research from FIT/ISEL aimed to test the quality and limitations of the communication from the sensors to gateways over various distances.
Signal Transmission was tested at short, medium and long ranges from implemented sensors to two LoRa gateways in Lisbon.
Verifying the Capacity of LoRa in Challenging Use Cases
Two LoRa gateways were deployed in Lisbon to test the signal strength received from the installed Dingtek702 and IoTsens sensors. The gateways were sold by different manufacturers. One gateway was mounted at ISEL and one at Amoreiras, at altitudes of 100 and 175 meters above sea level respectively. Sensors were installed at distances of 100 meters, 1km and 5km from the gateways. Expectations prior to the trials were that communication at short range would most likely work, long range was unlikely to work, and the capacity of medium range was uncertain.
The research aimed to determine necessary radio coverage of the network for both surface-level and underground waste containers and the number of gateways that would have to be deployed for a city-wide LoRa-coverage based on the test results. As waste management was regarded as the most difficult use case based on the metallic surrounding and structural support, other network applications of different public services with fewer disruptions would also be able to communicate with the gateways.
