A Low-complexity Synchronization Scheme for LoRa End Nodes

Abstract

The new applications enabled by the Internet of Things (IoT) require efficient and scalable low-power wide-area networks (LPWAN). Although LoRa is nowadays one of the most widely deployed LPWAN technologies, its physical layer has received little attention in the scientific literature and some of its working principles are not publicly known. In this paper, we derive for the first time an analytical model of a LoRa receiver contaminated by carrier frequency and sampling time offsets. We show that these offsets are deeply intertwined and that they cannot be estimated independently of each other. Using these results, we propose a low complexity synchronization algorithm capable of estimating and correcting both offsets. Simulation results suggest that, due to the structure of the preamble of LoRa frames, the synchronization stage, rather than the demodulation decision, limits the overall performance of the proposed receiver.