A Design of Multi-hop Network Protocol based on LoRaWAN Gateway

Currently, LPWA(Low Power Wide Area) communication technology is widely used due to the development of IoT(Internet of Things) technology. Among the LPWA technologies, LoRaWAN(Long Range Wide Area Network) is widely used in many fields due to its wide coverage, stable communication speed, and low-cost modem module prices. In particular, LoRa(Long Range) can easily construct LoRaWAN with a dedicated gateway. So many organizations are building their own LoRaWAN-based networks. The LoRaWAN Gateway receives the LoRa packet transmitted from an End-device installed in the adjacent location, converts it into the Internet protocol, and sends the packet to the final destination server. Current LoRa Gateway uses a single-hop method, and each gateway must include a communication network capable of the Internet. If it is the mobile communication(i.e., WCDMA, LTE, etc.) network, it is required to pay the internet usage fee which is installed in each gateway. If the LoRa communication is frequent, the user has to spend a lot of money. We propose an idea on how to design a multi-hop protocol which enables packet routing between gateways by analyzing the LoRaWAN communication method implemented in its existing single-hop way in this paper. For this purpose, this paper provides an analysis of the standard specification of LoRaWAN and explains what was considered when such protocol was designed. In this paper, two gateways have been placed based on the functional role so as to make the multi-hop protocol realized: (i) hopping gateway which receives packets from the end-device and forwards them to another gateway; and (ii) main gateway which finally transmits packets forwarded from the hopping gateway to the server via internet. Moreover, taking into account that LoRaWAN is wireless mobile communication, a level-based routing method is also included. If the protocol proposed by this paper is applied to the LoRaWAN network, the monthly internet fee incurred for the gateway will be reduced and the reliability of data transmission will be increased.