Monte Carlo-Based Interference Analysis of LPWAN Technologies for Smart Agriculture

The use of the Internet of Things (IoT) is becoming increasingly widespread in the agricultural sector to improve food productivity in response to a growing global population. Low-power wide area networks (LPWANs), such as LoRaWAN and Sigfox, are considered the most suitable communication technologies for IoT applications in smart agriculture. In rural environments, the large-scale deployment of devices for smart agriculture underscores the need to understand interference and coexistence issues among LPWAN technologies, as intensive sensor deployment is becoming the norm. In this paper, we present an in-depth study on interference analysis of Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN) in the context of smart agriculture. Different deployment scenarios are investigated through Monte Carlo simulations using the SEAMCAT tool. In particular, we analyze a network with a device density of 1,000 devices/km2, corresponding to a total of 78,539 devices distributed over a rural area of 19,408 acres. Finally, the results provide new insights into the simultaneous operation of LoRa and Sigfox in emerging smart agriculture applications.