Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/68522
Title: A comparative study of three LPWAN technologies LoRa, Sigfox, and NB-IoT in a rural environment
Authors: Vella, Carl
Keywords: Internet of things -- Malta
Wide area networks (Computer networks) -- Malta
MATLAB
Issue Date: 2020
Citation: Vella, C. (2020). A comparative study of three LPWAN technologies LoRa, Sigfox, and NB-IoT in a rural environment (Bachelor's dissertation).
Abstract: The objective of this project is to compare functionality and performance of three Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) Internet of Things (IoT) technologies; (Sigfox [1], LoRa [2] and NB-IoT [3]), deployed in a rural area in Malta covering 7 km². The main focus is to conduct experiments to analyse the performance of these technologies in terms of pathloss, RSSI and SNR in outdoor scenarios. In addition, the technical differences between these technologies will be explained and evaluated. Finally, the project will consider different application scenarios and elaborate which of the three LPWAN technologies is the best fit. The Hata propagation model was used to estimate path loss for the three technologies. This model predicts the Path Loss between the end device and the base station based on the height of transmit and receive antennas, the frequency of operation, the distance between them, and the type of environment being urban, suburban, rural and line-ofsight. Furthermore the model was also used to observe how the RSSI correlate with Path Loss and distance values. For the three technologies the Hata model predicted the values of the Path Loss consistently. For all cases, the RSSI was observed from the statistics of their server and compared with the calculations of the Hata model and the result were quite accurate with little discrepancy for the LoRa and Sigfox cases, while the NB-IoT measured values resulted in a larger error. Matlab was used consistently throughout the study to collect data from the microcontrollers. The comparison of data was made more accurate by coding scripts to obtain data at certain intervals and for a long duration for all the three technologies. That way we gathered a large sample of data to better determine the average values and avoid errors from testing on small sample size. Furthermore Matlab was used to present statistics of data to better understand the behaviour of each individual technology in different locations. With the results obtained from this study, future users can make use of these findings to make an informed decision on which technology is best suited for their desired IoT application.
Description: B.SC.(HONS)COMPUTER ENG.
URI: https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/68522
Appears in Collections:Dissertations - FacICT - 2020
Dissertations - FacICTCCE - 2020

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