Characterising foliage influence on LoRaWAN pathloss in a tropical vegetative environment

Ubiquitous computing for remote monitoring is enabling the Internet of Things applications in diverse areas. The potential impact of wireless sensor networks in remote habitat and agricultural monitoring cannot be overemphasised. LoRa (long range) is particularly well suited to applications requiring low operational costs, long-range wireless communication technology, low data rates and low power consumption. For industrial and large-scale deployment of this promising technology, it must be both empirically and theoretically evaluated and proven. For network design purposes and optimised positioning of devices, the authors evaluated long range wireless area network (LoRaWAN) propagation in a tropical vegetative environment. Traditional vegetation propagation models have been compared with the measured data. The free space model best fits their data except for the tree canopy area where the loss was about 56 dB. The result can be used as empirical bases to develop an accurate model and simulation tool for LoRaWAN deployment planning.