LoRaWAN Networking in Mobile Scenarios Using a WiFi Mesh of UAV Gateways

Abstract

Immediately after a disaster, such as a flood, wildfire or earthquake, networks might be congested or disrupted and not suitable for supporting the traffic generated by rescuers. In these situations, the use of a traditional fixed-gateway approach would not be effective due to the mobility of the rescuers. In the present work, a double-layer network system named LoRaUAV has been designed and evaluated with the purpose of finding a solution to the aforementioned issues. LoRaUAV is based on a WiFi ad hoc network of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) gateways acting as relays for the traffic generated between mobile LoRaWAN nodes and a remote Base Station (BS). The core of the system is a completely distributed mobility algorithm based on virtual spring forces that periodically updates the UAV topology to adapt to the movement of ground nodes. LoRaUAV has been successfully implemented in ns-3 and its performance has been comparatively evaluated in wild area firefighting scenarios, using Packet Reception Ratio (PRR) and end-to-end delay as the main performance metrics. It is observed that the Connection Recovery and Maintenance (CRM) and Movement Prediction (MP) mechanisms implemented in LoRaUAV effectively help improve the PRR, with the only disadvantage of a higher delay affecting a small percentage of packets caused by buffer delays and disconnections.

Hybrid LoRa-IEEE 802.11s Opportunistic Mesh Networking for Flexible UAV Swarming

“…Several studies have shown the possible adoption of LoRa-based protocols (e.g., Lo-RaWAN) for UAV communications, with different long-range applications, implementations, and use cases. A preliminary use of LoRaWAN is discussed in [19], where multiple UAVs are used as flying LoRaWAN gateways (GWs) to provide a network coverage to ground LoRaWAN-based end nodes and to exploit LoRaWAN only for ground-to-UAV applications in emergency-like situations while the backbone network relies on Wi-Fi (assuming LOS links). A similar approach is presented in [20], where multiple flying UAVs, each one equipped with a LoRaWAN GW, cooperate to form a complex LoRaWANoriented urban surveillance system to provide efficient and selective network coverage.…”

“…In detail, the authors discussed their experimental results in a range between 0 m and 60 m, with a maximum effective 1-hop range of approximately 130 m. Nevertheless, their architecture requires multiple GWs connected with a ground control center, thus remaining a ground mesh network with no aerial part. A simulated doublelayer mesh network, designed and evaluated for disaster recovery scenarios, was proposed in [19], where UAVs act as GWs in a Wi-Fi ad hoc network for the traffic generated between mobile LoRaWAN nodes and a remote ground station. Similar to other works, even in this case, the only available network among the flying drones is based on the Wi-Fi protocol, thus limiting the maximum distance between flying drones.…”

Improving the Energy Efficiency of a LoRaWAN by a UAV-based Gateway

“…Meanwhile, recently, the studies in which the authors suggest UAVs be used for improving the performance or enabling new functionalities within LoRaWAN have started to appear. Specifically, in [10], the UAVs are used to charge the LoRaWAN devices, and in [11]- [13], the UAVs are used to collect the data from LoRa and LoRaWAN sensors. In [11], the authors investigate how a drone-based gateway (GW) can improve the reliability of LoRaWAN communication in urban scenarios.…”

“…In [12], the authors assess how much can a drone increase the coverage of the network. The author of [13] investigates how to use the groups of UAV-based LoRaWAN GWs to improve the data delivery reliability. Nonetheless, to the best of our knowledge, none of the current studies focuses on the LoRaWAN end device energy consumption and lifetime improvements enabled by the UAV GWs.…”

A Hybrid-Driven Optimization Framework for Fixed-Wing UAV Maneuvering Flight Planning

“…Recent times have witnessed a wide range of applications for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) including the commercial, military, and research fields [1][2][3][4][5]. Most of the autonomous UAV flight missions are limited to cruise on a predefined path with steady flight states.…”