Development and Implementation of a Hybrid Wireless Sensor Network of Low Power and Long Range for Urban Environments

Abstract

The urban population, worldwide, is growing exponentially and with it the demand for information on pollution levels, vehicle traffic, or available parking, giving rise to citizens connected to their environment. This article presents an experimental long range (LoRa) and low power consumption network, with a combination of static and mobile wireless sensors (hybrid architecture) to tune and validate concentrator placement, to obtain a large coverage in an urban environment. A mobile node has been used, carrying a gateway and various sensors. The Activation By Personalization (ABP) mode has been used, justified for urban applications requiring multicasting. This allows to compare the coverage of each static gateway, being able to make practical decisions about its location. With this methodology, it has been possible to provide service to the city of Malaga, through a single concentrator node. The information acquired is synchronized in an external database, to monitor the data in real time, being able to geolocate the dataframes through web mapping services. This work presents the development and implementation of a hybrid wireless sensor network of long range and low power, configured and tuned to achieve efficient performance in a mid-size city, and tested in experiments in a real urban environment.

Scientific Developments and New Technological Trajectories in Sensor Research

“…This study reveals that networking of sensor systems is growing over time [ 48 , 52 , 81 , 82 , 83 ]. Results here also suggest that wireless sensor networks have a higher rate of evolution likely because of the interaction with specific technologies, such as Internet of Things, data security and monitoring systems.…”

Sistema de comunicación de respaldo mediante tecnología LoRa con hardware y software abierto para aplicaciones de robótica de emergencias

“…La contrapartida es el mayor nivel de interferencia en el espectro. Aunque pueda mantener enlaces de hasta 15 km en un área urbana [4], [8], la baja penetrabilidad por la frecuencia portadora afectaría la potencia de transmisión disponible del enlace en esta aplicación.…”

“…Otro proyecto más reciente (2020) ha sido la implementación de un sistema de comunicación híbrido usando gateways de tecnología LoRa estáticos y móviles. En este trabajo se evaluaron distintas configuraciones del protocolo LoRaWAN para los nodos y gateways instalados por la ciudad de Málaga (incluyendo los componentes móviles instalados en un automóvil eléctrico) [4].…”

Smart Monitoring and Controlling of Appliances Using LoRa Based IoT System

“…Bravo-Arrabal et al [27] developed LoRa-based low power consumption static and mobile wireless sensors network to attain a wide coverage in an urban environment. The technology was deployed in a mid-size city (Malaga, Spain) where a mobile node was developed by a gateway and sensors.…”