LoRa-LQE: An Energy-Efficient Link Quality Estimation Mechanism for Mobile LoRaWAN Networks
TL;DR
LoRa-LQE, a link quality estimation scheme specifically designed for mobile environments, outperforms state-of-the-art solutions and achieves packet delivery ratio improvements and energy efficiency improvements, thereby enabling more reliable communication for mobile IoT assets.
Abstract
Smart infrastructures increasingly rely on mobile IoT applications, such as fleet tracking and asset monitoring, which require robust long-range connectivity. Although LoRaWAN is a prominent technology in this context, its standard Adaptive Data Rate mechanism suffers significant performance degradation in dynamic scenarios due to delayed and outdated channel estimation. To address this limitation, this work proposes LoRa-LQE, a link quality estimation scheme specifically designed for mobile environments. By jointly leveraging SNR history and channel stability indicators, the proposed heuristic optimizes the allocation of Spreading Factor and Transmission Power on a per-device basis. Extensive simulations conducted in NS-3 evaluate the approach under varying node densities and mobility profiles. Across the evaluated scenarios, the results show that LoRa-LQE outperforms state-of-the-art solutions, achieving packet delivery ratio improvements of up to 12.1% and energy efficiency improvements of up to 46.6% compared to Mobile ADR, the second-best mobility-aware scheme considered, thereby enabling more reliable communication for mobile IoT assets.