Special Issue - 2022 International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT)

ISSN: 2278-0181
ICEI - 2022 Conference Proceedings

A Review on LoRa Transmission

Jayantha Nayak Manoj P Uday J
Electronics and Communication Electronics and Communication Electronics and Communication
Mangalore of Institute of Mangalore of Institute of Mangalore of Institute of
Technology and Engineering Technology and Engineering Technology and Engineering
Moodabidri , India Moodabidri , India Moodabidri , India

Abstract—The concept of Internet of Things(IoT) has evolved

over the past years, connecting systems to the internet to make
life easier or simply to improve quality of life. LoRa is a low power
RF transmission technology working on Chirp spread spectrum .
LoRa is long range low data rate transmission technique having
an effective range upto five kilometers.The major advantage of
this technology is low power consumption along with large area
coverage .This paper focuses on the LoRa module working, its
behavior, scalability.

Keywords—LoRa, Spreading Factor,Data Rate , LoRaWAN.

Fig.1. LoRa technology with other technologies
I. INTRODUCTION II. LITERATURE REVIEW
Communication systems have evolved with time from [1] explains LoRaWAN architecture that takes physical and
wired to wireless from kilobytes speed to Gigabytes. The IoT MAC layers in detail, and also explains applications of LoRa in
[8], which interconnects systems with one another, requires different fields. It compares the technology with other
efficient communication. LoRa is a such communication model technologies such as NB-IoT, Sigfox, Zigbee etc. Also shows
which transmit data efficiently to long distance with low the result of LoRa transmission over different distances and
power consumption. It suits most IoT applications as it can success rate of frame transmission. [2] the performance and
transmit information to long distances. But it comes with a coverage result of the LoRa indoor and outdoor deployment is
disadvantage of less data speed. So it will be time consuming presented using a selected combination of Spreading Factor and
for transmission of large data packets. It is having its scope in Bandwidth setting. The SNR, packet Loss rate and RSSI etc.
agriculture, tourism, internet of things and more as it provides are derived and analyzed. [3] allows connection of multiple
data transmission over long areas without much error for sensors to the LoRa transceivers, and enables data collection
milliWatts of power. from various units within a microgrid. The scheme can be
LORA TECHNOLOGY : employed to transfer measured data such as voltage, current,
LoRa is an innovative wireless technology which works on frequency and other parameters between the local controllers of
chirp spread spectrum(CSS). This technology is designed for DG units and the central controller of microgrids at the
transmission of data over longer distances, so the technology is secondary level of control and communication. [4] gives the
named as LoRa which abbreviates Long Range.The another basics of LoRa and LoRaWAN along with an OSI model of it.
advantage of the module is low battery usage, which is the Also explains frame transmission in LoRa technology and its
result of less data rate of the module. LoRa module has a network elements. It explains the variation of data rate w.r.to.
maximum speed of 50kbps and minimum varies with distance. spreading factor in both uplink and downlink. Also elaborates
It is operated at 433MHz, 868MHz and 915MHz at different on Discrete spread spectrum in LoRa technology and
locations. advantages of LoRa over others. [5] analyzed the performance
Chirp spread spectrum [9] is a spread spectrum technique of LoRa, based on its three basic parameters: code rate,
that uses wideband linear frequency modulated chirp pulses to spreading factor and bandwidth. Explaining different
encode information.A chirp is a sinusoidal signal whose connecting technologies, it describes the data transmission
frequency increases or decreases over time. model of LoRa. The LoRaWAN network architecture elements
This technology is owned by Semtech Corporation which (end devices, gateways, network server, application servers) are
has created a space for collaborative working on the technology explained, the 3 basic classes of end devices are elaborated by
namely LoRa alliance. The main parameter governing the LoRa the authors. [6] speaks about the power distribution in the LoRa
transmission is Spreading factor. It governs the data rate, range cell and spreading factor allocation. The author is proposing an
and other factors as shown in below equation. algorithm to reduce and control the path loss and error rate
using power and spreading factor. Using a simulation he
Bandwidth
Symbol Rate = showed a 42% reduction in loss.
2SF
Where SF is Spreading Factor. III. LORA MODULES IN INDIA
The LoRa module is available in different forms of different
companies.So , a survey is found necessary to be conducted to

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Special Issue - 2022 International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT)
ISSN: 2278-0181
ICEI - 2022 Conference Proceedings

find the best module out of them . We found the existence of 6 IV. IMPLEMENTATION
LoRa modules in the Indian market by different vendors. The Team has practically designed communication system and
LoRa technology was built by SemTech company which is tried to analyse the process. Two LoRa modules with
providing the technology license to others. These 6 modules NodeMCU had placed at different end; one servicing as
have similar functionalities and differ little bit with each other. transmitter and another as receiver. As shown in figure 2 the
So, the comparison was done between different modules and circuit is implemented with two NodeMCU, two LoRa modules
the comparison table is shown below. (Ra02 from AiThinker), two Antennas .Since LoRa module’s
antenna has ipex male pin an ipex female to SMA male
Table .1. Hardware components comparison-1 connector is used for antenna connections . The power supply
of 3.3V is provided to LoRa by the NodeMCU 3v3 pin.Here
RA 02 RN2903 LoRa E5 serial communication is established and out of six data pins D0
is used for data transfer.
Spreading 6-12 6-12 6-12
factor

Price ₹595 ₹931 ₹931

Interfaces SPI I²C, SPI, I²C, SPI,

UART UART,
ADC,NRST.

Data rate 300kbps- 300 kbps- 300 kbps -

FSK FSK FSK
12500
bps- 10990 bps -
LoRa LoRa

Frequency 410-525 902.00 both

MHz MHz to 434MHz and Figure .2. Module setup for small distance
928.00 868 MHz The transmission of numeric data was performed where
MHz random numbers are generated and transmitted over the
connection . Both the NodeMCUs were sending data at 115200
Table .2. Hardware components comparison-2
symbols/sec to the modules .it was found that packet were
transferred with a delay of approximately 400-450ms .i.e. with
CMWX1ZZ SX127 RFM95/96/9
ABZ-078 9 7/98(W)
average delay of 430 ms.The delay is a lot more compared other
wireless modules.
Spreadin 12 6- 12 6-12
g factor

Price ₹ 1,196.04 ₹540 ₹565

Interface I²C, SPI, SPI UART

s UART, USB

Data rate 100kbps - 0.018- 0.018 - 37.5

FSK 40kbps kbps
Figure .3. LoRa transmission with packet drop and high delay
4.8Kbps -
LoRa From the implementation we also come to know about the
issue of preambling in LoRa .i.e. repeating of last value for the
Frequenc 868MHz, 137 - 433/470MHz next set of instances. The pattern of sending was after four
y 915MHz 960M
Hz
correct transmission the fourth value was repeat random times.
This might because of error data reception or asynchronous data
reception.
So, most of the modules are having the same features and
differ mostly in cost and data rate which are the main factors to
be considered. Here SX-1276,77,78,79 series (SX-127x) is Disadvantages of LoRa
manufactured by SemTech, parent company of LoRaWAN. LoRa technology has some disadvantages along sides the
And most modules embedded this chip to provide LoRa great advantages which includes
transmission.

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Special Issue - 2022 International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT)
ISSN: 2278-0181
ICEI - 2022 Conference Proceedings

1. Delay : The transmission delay in LoRa modules is [6] Reynders, Brecht; Meert, Wannes; Pollin, Sofie. “Power and spreading
factor control in low power wide area networks.” , 2017 IEEE
too high which makes it not so suitable for real time
International Conference on Communications (ICC) ,1–6.
application .Ra02(AiThinker) LoRa module has a doi:10.1109/ICC.2017.7996380.
delay of range 400-450 ms between transmission and [7] Ruobing Liang, Liang Zhao , and Peng Wang “Performance
reception .The typical value of the delay is 430ms . A Evaluations of LoRa Wireless Communication in Building
Environments,” Sensors 2020, 20, 3828; doi:10.3390/s20143828 .
wireless module of such high delay is not suited in
[8] Jagannathan, P., Gurumoorthy, S., Stateczny, A., Divakarachar, P.B.
many industrial works.A conventional wireless and Sengupta, J., 2021. Collision-Aware Routing Using Multi-
module should have delay less than 200 ms in Objective Seagull Optimization Algorithm for WSN-Based
industry standard . ( We on trial over the NodeMCU IoT. Sensors, 21(24), p.8496.
[9] Chiani, Marco & Elzanaty, Ahmed. “On the LoRa Modulation for IoT:
module obtained a delay of 130 ms).
Waveform Properties and Spectral Analysis.”, IEEE Internet of Things
Journal. (2019)., PP. 1-1. 10.1109/JIOT.2019.2919151.
2. Data Rate : As mentioned before LoRa module has a [10] Sun Changqing; Zheng Fuquan; Zhou, Guangxu; Guo, Kun (2020).
maximum data rate of 50 Kbps. It is done to [IEEE 2020 39th Chinese Control Conference (CCC) - Shenyang,
China (2020.7.27-2020.7.29)] - “Design and
complement the power consumption . But this is a
[11] Implementation of Cloud-based Single-channel LoRa IIoT Gateway
road breaker for many applications to imply it. Using Raspberry Pi.” ,5259–5263.
doi:10.23919/CCC50068.2020.9189480.
3. Packet Drop : While transmitting numeric data, it was [12] E. Aras, G. S. Ramachandran, P. Lawrence and D. Hughes, "Exploring
the Security Vulnerabilities of LoRa," 2017 3rd IEEE International
found that the LoRa module drops some data packets
Conference on Cybernetics (CYBCONF), 2017, pp. 1-6, doi:
between transmission , which might make the 10.1109/CYBConf.2017.7985777.
information loss during real time usage which is [13] M. Saari, A. M. bin Baharudin, P. Sillberg, S. Hyrynsalmi and W. Yan,
crucial to be known . It was found that a pattern of "LoRa — A survey of recent research trends," 2018 41st International
Convention on Information and Communication Technology,
receiving happens in the module where a middle
Electronics and Microelectronics (MIPRO), 2018, pp. 0872-0877, doi:
packet is sent but not received . 10.23919/MIPRO.2018.8400161.
[14] Sojka Peter & Jaros Viliam. (2019). “Design of a wireless
4. Error Rate : LoRa uses UDP for transmitting frame communication based on low power RF transceivers,” Transportation
Research Procedia. 40. 505-510. doi:10.1016/j.trpro.2019.07.073.
which does not include Error control or flow control
[15] Dunlop B., Nguyen Ha. H., Barton R., & Henry J., “Interference
or congestion control algorithms . So LoRa Analysis for LoRa Chirp Spread Spectrum Signals,” 2019 IEEE
transmission will contain error in data. Canadian Conference of Electrical and Computer Engineering
(CCECE). doi:10.1109/ccece.2019.8861956.
V. FUTURE SCOPE [16] D.H. Lee, Kim, E.-K., & Kim, J. (2019). ”Experiencing LoRa Network
In this paper we have shown the result found on transmitting Establishment on a Smart Energy Campus Testbed. Sustainability,”
11(7), 1917. doi:10.3390/su11071917 .
numeric data between modules.The effect while transmitting
large data can be analyzed and presented. LoRa transmission
between multiple devices can be tried to implement and the
analysis for the same can be performed. The increment of the
data rate without affecting power consumption could be a
possible improvement in the technology.
VI. CONCLUSION
LoRa technology has its own purpose of designing. So it
incoperates different advantages and disadvantages.It has vast
field of applications which can be explored. It has major
application in IoT data transmission. It is cost effective and also
covers wide area. So it has application in home automation ,
security systems , sensor connectivity etc.
REFERENCES
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[2] Alireza Zourmand, Andrew Lai Kun Hing, Chan Wai Hung,
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technology, ”IEEE International Conference on Automatic Control and
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[3] Ndukwe, C.I & Iqbal, Tariq & Liang, Xiaodong & Khan, Jahangir &
Aghenta, Lawrence. (2020). “LoRa-based communication system for
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[4] Semtech Corporation “ LoRa and LoRaWAN: A Technical Overview,”
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