LoRa Network Planning: Gateway Placement and Device Configuration

LoRa is a leading Low-Power Wide-Area Network technology for IoT applications that require communication over long distances at low power. While there exist several studies on the performance, scalability and security of LoRa networks, the important problem of how to efficiently plan and deploy LoRa networks has not received much attention so far. In this work, we address this problem, which consists of the joint problems of gateway placement, spreading factor assignment, and power allocation. We formulate the problem as a mixed-integer non-linear optimization problem, which can be solved only for small networks. By systematically analyzing the structural properties of the optimal problem, specifically on regularly-structured networks, we develop an approximate algorithm for planning large-scale LoRa networks efficiently. Simulation results are provided to show the behavior and performance of our algorithm in different network scenarios. We have also compared our algorithm with the commonly used ADR algorithm, which shows 15% and 20% improvement in average throughput and energy efficiency of the network, respectively.