Evaluation of Peer-to-Peer LoRa for Geolocation Usage in a Rural Environment

Sammanfattning: With the increased popularity of the Internet of Things (IoT) and vehicle tracking, long range communication alternatives become essential for connecting a large number of units in a network.In areas where no coverage from existing technologies is available such as rural areas, the need for a solution presents itself. This thesis aims to examine the validity of using a Peer-to-Peer network structure to send geolocation information among nodes in a network using the Long Range (LoRa) protocol as opposed to using Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN) structure. The research question that was used was the following: “Can LoRa be used for P2P networking to exchange geolocation messages in rural areas?”By developing two modules using Raspberry Pi and Dragino LoRa/GPS shields, a prototype system could be created in order to test the performance of the network. The modules were tested in a rural area outside of Stockholm, Sweden.Together with field test data from the prototype and existing network loss models the network performance was evaluated. Due to testing conditions a theoretical maximum communication range of around 12 km was established using this data. Therefore using Peer-to-Peer LoRa for geolocation purposes in rural areas was concluded viable.