M‐SADR: Mobile Self Adaptive Data Rate for Enhanced LoRa End‐Device Connectivity on the Move

Mobility is a critical aspect of the Internet of Things, reflecting the diverse and dynamic nature of potential applications. LoRa, a low power wide area network, is a promising wireless technology suitable for a wide range of applications. In this paper, we propose mobile self adaptive data rate (M‐SADR), a method designed to handle LoRa‐enabled mobile end devices, aiming to reduce energy consumption while maintaining a high packet delivery ratio. M‐SADR operates on the end device side by selecting the spreading factor and transmission power for the next packet based on previous attempts. The proposed method stands out from similar solutions by enabling mobile LoRa end devices to determine transmission parameters efficiently, using a simple approach that requires minimal processing and storage resources. We evaluated our method in two distinct scenarios: the first involves three mobile gateways following a moving group of end devices, while the second uses a single static gateway with multiple mobile end devices moving arbitrarily around it. The evaluation of the two simulation scenarios showed that our method achieves better results, with up to 2.4% higher packet delivery ratio and 5.7% lower energy consumption per successfully delivered packet compared with other methods (ADR‐MIN, BADR, and HADR) for LoRa mobile end devices. Furthermore, a small‐scale testbed was implemented, demonstrating that the proposed algorithm performs better than its competitors in real‐world scenarios. Finally, in the first simulation scenario, we present a methodology uses RSSI‐based position estimation to reposition the mobile gateways and maintain proximity to the moving group of end devices.