LoRa (short for long range) is a spread spectrum modulation technique derived from chirp spread spectrum (CSS) technology. Semtech’s LoRa devices and wireless radio frequency technology is a long range, low power wireless platform that has become the de facto technology for Internet of Things (IoT) networks worldwide. LoRa devices and the open LoRaWAN® protocol enable smart IoT applications that solve some of the biggest challenges facing our planet: energy management, natural resource reduction, pollution control, infrastructure efficiency, disaster prevention, and more. Semtech’s LoRa devices and the LoRaWAN protocol have amassed several hundred known uses cases for smart cities, smart homes and buildings, smart agriculture, smart metering, smart supply chain and logistics, and more. With well over 100 million devices connected to networks in 100 countries and growing, LoRa devices are the DNA of IoT, creating a Smarter Planet.
During the occurrence of an emergency, being it the consequence of a natural disaster or of human activities, the pervasiveness of user-owned mobile devices (e.g. smartphones, tablets) turns into a precious help to convey data and services to all the people involved. As a result, several emergency-related mobile applications have been proposed on the market; however, they are often limited by the networking capabilities of the devices, since they are often based on short-range Device-to-Device (D2D) communication technologies (e.g. the Wi-Fi Direct), or on the cellular infrastructure, which might be not available on the emergency scenario. Here we attempt to overcome both such issues, by proposing an Emergency Communication System (ECS) which operates over infrastructure-less phone-based networks, and guarantees long-range D2D communication thanks to the LoRa technology.
Our project includes a website, through which users can convey minimal yet vital emergency-related data, and a dissemination protocol, spreading the emergency requests over multi-hop LoRA links. The performance of LOCATE have been evaluated through: (i) an experimental study, assessing the capability of LoRa technology to convey short, emergency messages over long distances, and a (ii) simulation study, demonstrating the effectiveness of the dissemination protocol on large-scale scenarios when compared to state-of-the-art flooding schemes.