Co-promotor: An Braeken

Part of the growing IoT scene is low-power, long range communication. LoRa is a popular and growing technology designed for this market segment. Low-power networks typically use very constrained devices, with a limited, battery powered power supply.
A recent development is the availability of LoRa in the 2.4 GHz frequency band. This offers the possibility of higher data rates at a shorter but still a significant range as compared to short range solutions at 2,4 GHz..

Research towards more optimized protocols for LoRa is a very active topic. In particular, the multihop LoRa solutions as compared to the traditional single hop star based solution is under investigation by many research groups in the world. We contribute by proposing routing protocols and improved Medium Access Control and Radio Duty Cycling protocols with the goal to improve reliability and extend and battery life.

LoRa typically uses a ALOHA like MAC protocol, but we believe different asynchronous protocols could improve performance, especially combined with multihop topologies. Based on existing RDC protocols you would implement versions for LoRa of suitable protocols and do an evaluation and comparison of those using a network evaluation setup designed previously.

Implement novel protocols for LoRa 2.4 GHz
Test and evaluate the radio and implemented protocols on motes.

Implement novel protocols for LoRa 2.4 GHz
Test and evaluate the radio and implemented protocols on motes.