When Renewable Energy Meets LoRa: A Feasibility Analysis on Cable-Less Deployments

Abstract

In recent years, Low Power-Wide Area Networks gained momentum thanks to their inherent capabilities to support Internet of Things services with broad geographical coverage. Among them, the Long Range Wide Area Network standard, recently promoted by the LoRa T M Alliance, is emerging as one of the most promising solution capable to provide a radio coverage up to tens of kilometers with very low data rates, while working in the unlicensed sub-GHz band. This paper focuses on Long Range Wide Area Networks and sheds some light on the feasibility of fully cable-less Internet of Things deployments, where dual-radio gateways are fed by a photovoltaic plant and equipped with a wireless backhaul. As a first step, the power needs of a dualradio gateway, serving a mix of realistic Machine-to-Machine applications and leveraging different combinations of front-end chipsets and backhaul wireless technologies, are investigated. Then, the achieved results are properly employed to size the photovoltaic plant, as well as to estimate its installation costs and land acquisition. Finally, cost-saving and carbon footprints analysis is presented to demonstrate the socioeconomic benefits arising out of these cable-less deployments for Long Range Wide Area Networks. The conducted study clearly exhibits that network operators can achieve their break-even point during the early stages after the deployment, while adopting environmentfriendly approaches because of carbon emission savings achieved by renewable energy.

On the LoRa Modulation for IoT: Waveform Properties and Spectral Analysis

“…In this regard, Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWANs) aim to offer low data rate communication capabilities over ranges of several kilometers [1]- [4]. Among the current communication systems, that proposed by the LoRa alliance (Low power long Range) [5] is one of the most promising, with an increasing number of IoT applications, including smart metering, smart grid, and data collection from wireless sensor networks for environmental monitoring [6]- [11]. Several works discuss the suitability of the LoRa communication system when the number of IoT devices increases [12]- [15].…”

Energy-Efficient LoRaWAN for Industry 4.0 Applications

“…Despite the green energy solutions, it is important to note that each kind of renewable energy source is associated with a certain amount of carbon per kWh of generation. By distributing these carbon emissions on the lifetime of the system, we can consider an amount of carbon associated with each type of renewable energy source as 15g/kW h, 20g/kW h, and 30g/kW h for thermoelectric, photoelectric, and RF energy respectively [28], [29] as compared to the CO 2 emission of fully battery powered monitoring devices as 150g/kW h [30]. Let CO batt.…”

A novel holistic approach for performance evaluation in Internet of Things

“…The potential applications for IoT and LoRa/LoRaWAN are huge; 15 from e-health 16,17 and smart-grids 18,19 to intelligent transportation systems 20 and climate change. 21 For instance, low-cost, low-consumption nanosensors can be incorporated into clothes and accessories to monitor vital signs in patients; a mobile phone can act as a gateway to gather information and send it to a cloud system for further processing.…”