An Analytical Model for Multihop LoRaWAN Networks

LoRaWAN is one of the most popular LPWAN technology due to the facility to implement applications that require a low cost, low energy consumption, low data rate, and large coverage area. A LoRaWAN network is composed of end-devices that transmit data to gateways, forming a single-hop star topology. Multihop networks are receiving the attention of the LoRaWAN community since it allows to extend the coverage area and improve the energy efficiency,
thus prolonging the network lifetime. In this paper, we propose an analytical model for multihop LoRaWAN networks.
We investigate the energy consumption, throughput, delay, and packet delivery ratio of single-hop and multihop relay
networks. The results showed that the network performance could be improved with relay nodes, giving insights to new
multihop proposals for LoRaWAN.