Empirical Validation of LoRaWAN Network Coverage Strategies for IoT Deployments

Low-Power Wide-Area Network (LoRaWAN) infrastructure deployment is accelerating as the Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem spreads. Network coverage planning efficiency is crucial for the LoRaWAN network. and for network coverage it is critical to decide gateways locations. LPWANs for building AMI has star-of-stars network topology where a central gateway connects multiple smart meters. In this thesis it is pointed out the challenge of setting up an Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) LPWAN (Low-Power Wide-Area Network) is geographical locations of gateways so they can cover as many smart meters as they can. To be able to achieve that there are many prediction models but the predictions may not meet with places practically available. This thesis proposes a measurement tool called LoRaWAN Site Survey Tool (SST) for testing network coverage before and after installations. SSt is a complete system including a SST client (LoRaWAN hardware and as a software an android application) and SST server part. This tool provides an assessment method for wireless network planners to measure choosing a different gateway installation location other than predicted location affects the overall performance of Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI).