On the Simulation of LoRaWAN Networks: A Focus on Reproducible Parameter Configuration

Abstract

In the past decade, with the rapid proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices new applications have emerged in diverse fields such as agriculture, smart cities, and healthcare. In this context, LoRaWAN, a Low-Power Wide Area Network protocol, has gained significant adoption. Its advantages, including low-power consumption and long-range communication capabilities, make it an ideal solution for IoT communication. Simulation tools have played a crucial role in facilitating experimentation and advancing the implementation of the LoRaWAN protocol. However, effectively modelling these experiments present a significant challenge. Through a comprehensive survey of the literature on LoRaWAN, we have identified variations in parameter configuration among different works and observed a lack of sufficient information in most of them, thereby impeding result reproducibility. This paper offers a comprehensive overview of LoRaWAN technology, encompassing its architecture and underlying technologies such as LoRa and LPWAN. Furthermore, we present and compare the main simulation tools currently available for LoRaWAN, discuss the parameters that significantly impact the performance of a LoRaWAN network, and explore how researchers have configured these parameters to model their simulation experiments.