Mitigation of LoRa interferences via dynamic channel weights

The Low Power Wide Area Networks, such as LoRa (Long Range), allow communication over a large area with limited bandwidth and small data rates, using an unlicensed band. LoRa uses multiple channels, but the number of channels available is relatively narrow - e.g. 8 in most countries in Europe. The transmission is subject to interferences due to many other devices transmitting within the same frequencies. In this paper, we evaluate how strong the interferences' influence is by analysing the packet delivery rate in a large scale LoRa network. The measurements have been made over more than seven months and show noticeable variability in packet delivery rate per channel both in space and in time. We propose to estimate the scale of interferences through continuous observation of the number of delivered packets for every channel per LoRa gateway or per selected area. We also discuss how this estimation may mitigate the interferences by assigning the dynamic weights to the LoRa channel selection procedure. We created an algorithm that periodically updates the weights, and a simulation model to evaluate the algorithm. A significant improvement in the efficiency of package delivery is visible, from 12% to 49% less packet loss.