LoRaPlan: A Software to Evaluate Gateway Placement in LoRaWAN

Abstract

Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN) is one of the fastest growing Internet of Things (IoT) access network solutions. One major challenge in current LoRaWAN planning is message collision due to the random channel access. To study the collision behavior in LoRaWAN, we present LoRaPlan in this demonstration. LoRaPlan is a software to evaluate gateway placement decisions by studying the collision probability. Therefore, sensor and gateway locations can be imported to create a LoRaWAN. Furthermore, existing networks can be extended by additional gateways. Based on this setup, network coverage, network quality with regard to the number of sensors a single gateway has to manage, and also transmission quality and collision probabilities can be studied. In this demonstration, first the process of network creation with gateway and sensor import and additional manual gateway placement in LoRaPlan is presented. Different adjustable parameters are shown and the influence on network coverage and collision probability is discussed. At the end of this demonstration, it is possible for the audience to place their own gateways and evaluate own placements by means of collision probability and the coverage.