Soil monitoring nodes installed in precision agriculture that use LoRaWAN have a 15-20 km range of transmission using the 157MHz frequency band. Results of experiments conducted at Wageningen University in the Netherlands show that its power consumption is 58% less than the NB-IoT solution with 0.12mA standby current, and hence battery life for CR2032 is 10 years versus 3 years. AgriTech in 2023 utilized a 1,250-node network in 10,000 mu of wheat fields with an annual maintenance cost of just 3.2 euros per node, 37% cheaper than cellular iot solutions. But it is worth mentioning that, at more than 35% soil moisture, the attenuation rate of the signal at the 433MHz frequency band will be increased from 0.8dB/m to 2.4dB/m, and an adaptive power control algorithm (between 14dBm and 20dBm) should be adopted for compensation.
LoRaWAN has demonstrated particular potential in urban infrastructure monitoring. The 5,600 smart water meters installed in Singapore’s smart water initiative has cut the size of the average daily data volume to 50Bytes by leveraging on ADR (Adaptive Data Rate) technology, with a network capacity of 10,000 nodes per square kilometer. The 2024 municipal report indicates that detection time for water leakage has been reduced from 72 hours to 2.1 hours, and yearly water loss has reduced by 2.3 million cubic meters. Gartner’s report shows that fornetworks that implement the TSCH (Time Slot Frequency Hopping) mechanism, the data packet conflict rate is less than 2% at a node density of 50 nodes/km², but the metal pipe environment will increase the signal penetration loss by 12dB.
The logistics application shows how DHL’s asset tracking system with lorawan deployed at its Leipzig, Germany, hub is 200-meter accurate with TDoA (Time Difference in Arrival) positioning technology, which is six times better than the RSSI solution of Bluetooth 5.1. Cold chain container monitoring data worth 4.7 million euros demonstrates that under a temperature of -25℃, the power consumption of the equipment is stable at 28μA, and CR2450 battery life is up to 8 years. Nonetheless, the ABI Research report cautions that the metal shelf conditions can increase the packet loss rate of the 868MHz signal from 3% to 27%, necessitating relaying gateways every 50 meters, pushing network building costs up by 19%.
Comparative tests in energy management applications prove that State Grid’s LoRaWAN smart metering pilot in Jiangsu reduced the cost of one module from 42 US dollars to 11 US dollars, and meter reading success rate is 99.98%. Through the adjustment of SF12 spread spectrum factor, 7-kilometers coverage is achieved at a receiving sensitivity of -130 DBM, which is decreasing the cost of manual meter reading by 83%. But the IEEE 802.15.4g standard test shows that when the ambient temperature is higher than 55℃, the bit error rate of SX1276 chip will increase from 0.01% to 0.35%, and needs to be combined with the heat dissipation design to guarantee the performance.
The special requirement of the medical Internet of Things highlights the technical differences. Mayo Clinic employed LoRaWAN wearable device that can sustain 72 hours of monitoring of vital signs in [email protected] mode, three times longer than the Bluetooth solution. The test of building penetration indicates that the receiving intensity of the 868MHz signal after three concrete walls (in total 0.9 meters thickness) is -107 DBM, and it is still able to reach an effective transmission rate of 1.2kbps. But from the FDA certification report, it can be seen that when over 500 medical nodes are stimulated simultaneously, the duty cycle limit will lead to the increase of data delay from 2 seconds to 8 seconds, which is unable to satisfy the needs of real-time ECG monitoring.
In order to ensure reliability in harsh environments of industrial production conditions, the LoRaWAN sensor network applied in the 85 ° C high-temperature workshop workshop of Siemens Amberg factory has a data integrity rate of 99.5% through FEC forward error correction technology. Vibration monitoring data shows that under the condition of 125kHz bandwidth, 0.05mm mechanical displacement is detectable, and the predictive maintenance accuracy rate is 92%. Notwithstanding that, comparative analyses show that in applications requiring 10ms-level real-time control, LoRaWAN’s 4000ms latency is 400 times higher than WirelessHART’s, and a hybrid model of network must be employed to make up for the deficiency.