LoRa radius coverage map on urban and rural areas: Case study of Athens northern suburbs and Tinos Island, Greece

With the rapid development of the Internet of Things, the most widespread way of transmitting data from such arrangements is the utilization of a LoRa network. The advantages offered by LoRa, concern both low power consumption and wireless coverage of an area. Although in many works a reference is made regarding the coverage radius of a geographical area, there are differences between urban (cities) and rural (countryside) areas, as in the rural areas there are no dense structures nor radio signal noise inside the operating frequencies spectrum of LoRa. Thus results are expected to be better at rural areas than urban areas. Especially in an urban area, apart from the signal noise caused by other LoRa devices (both commercial or private), the coverage varies according to the floor where a LoRa station is placed in a building, in relation to the height in which the LoRa gateway is placed in another building. In this work, the LoRa radio coverage study is presented in a radius of 2km, both in an urban and in a rural environment using only one LoRa gateway. In particular, the urban environment includes buildings with an average height of 15m, while the geographical surface of the area includes two hills. To better capture the coverage, LoRa stations are placed on all floors of the selected buildings periodically. The results show the difference in coverage between urban and rural areas which is related to radio signal noise. Furthermore, we observe significant changes in the coverage map in urban areas, affected by the installation height (floor) of the LoRa station. By understanding these variations in LoRa network performance for different environments, we can make informed decisions when deploying such networks, optimizing their efficiency and ensuring seamless data transmission in both urban and rural settings.