Wireless Sensing in the Woodlands: Preliminary Tests for LoRaWAN Transmission in Vegetated Areas

This paper investigates the transmission capability of the LoRa technology in vegetation-covered environments, usually characterised by attenuation due to foliage, branches and tree trunks. Assessing the viability of this radio technology in this context allows to legitimate its usage in the deployment of wireless sensor networks in wooded areas, as for example for the detection of fires in forests. Field tests are performed in an artificial wood establishing a radio link between an end device and a gateway at three different inter-nodes distances (i. e., d= 50 m, d= 100 m and d= 200 m). The collected data are evaluated in terms of Received Signal Strength Indicators (RSSIs), Signal to Noise Ratios (SNRs) and packet loss percentages (PLs). These outcomes are then compared with five path loss empirical models finding a good agreement for $d$ = 50 m and d= 100 m, while for d= 200 m most of the models underestimate the vegetation losses with respect to the experimental data.