Experimental Performance Evaluation Techniques of LoRa Radio Modules and Exploitation for Agricultural Use

In pace with the fast evolving conditions in the agricultural area, this research work presents a set of easily-applicable, experimental techniques forming lightweight tools for modifying and evaluating the performance of radio modules that are based on the promising LoRa protocol, mainly in terms of radio coverage, energy consumption and packet losses. The proposed approach is exploiting the modern, low-cost, innovative card-sized computer systems. These systems, if combined with simple electronic components and conventional smart phone devices, can form an effective, flexible and portable measurement testbed, able to deliver results of satisfactory accuracy. In terms of software, this testbed is using wide-spread programming environments, both textual and visual, to form simple commands for controlling and monitoring the behavior of the radio interfaces of interest. The whole arrangement is ideal for educational purposes or for usage by not very experienced personnel, in the open field (e.g., orchards), the greenhouses or the livestock farming environment. This chapter, apart from highlighting the software and hardware details of the proposed measuring system and from presenting characteristic performance results, also reports on the feasibility of the LoRa radio modules to carry out the information needed to accomplish simple agricultural tasks (both sensing and acting ones), through designing and implementing typical examples.