DSME-LoRa: Seamless Long Range Communication Between Arbitrary Nodes in the Constrained IoT

TL;DR

DSME-LoRa integrates IEEE 802.15.4 DSME with LoRa to enable seamless client-to-client communication, overcoming LoRaWAN limitations, and demonstrates superior scalability and performance in large-scale IoT deployments.

Contribution

This paper introduces DSME-LoRa, a novel system design combining LoRa with IEEE 802.15.4 DSME to enhance IoT communication capabilities beyond gateway-centric models.

Findings

DSME-LoRa enables direct client-to-client communication.

It outperforms LoRaWAN in scalability and performance.

The system is feasible with full-stack implementation and analytical modeling.

Abstract

Long range radio communication is preferred in many IoT deployments as it avoids the complexity of multi-hop wireless networks. LoRa is a popular, energy-efficient wireless modulation but its networking substrate LoRaWAN introduces severe limitations to its users. In this paper, we present and thoroughly analyze DSME-LoRa, a system design of LoRa with IEEE 802.15.4 DSME as a MAC layer. DSME-LoRa offers the advantage of seamless client-to-client communication beyond the pure gateway-centric transmission of LoRaWAN. We evaluate its feasibility via a full-stack implementation on the popular RIOT operating system, assess its steady-state packet flows in an analytical stochastic Markov model, and quantify its scalability in massive communication scenarios using large scale network simulations. Our findings indicate that DSME-LoRa is indeed a powerful approach that opens LoRa to standard network layers and outperforms LoRaWAN in many dimensions.