Loraquatica: Studying Range And Location Estimation Using Lora And Iot In Aquatic Sensing

While ubiquitous computing remains vastly applied in urban environments, their applications in ocean environment remain scarce due to the limitations in range and cost of current radio technology. This hinders environmental telemetry in the oceans and other remote areas. In this study, we explore the usage of IoT and Long Range Radio Communication (LoRa) in ocean environments. We study the maximum distance for LoRa and a potential location estimation based on the same technology using the passive RSSI analysis. Using three coastal based nodes and a node mounted on a sea vessel, we report a maximum range of 83.6km. We also achieve a location error within a radius of 3.4km (4% of maximum distance) in the sea. These results support marine biologist expeditions, allowing them to use low-cost, long-lasting and easy to deploy solutions for tracking marine objects and species in open ocean, providing them data in near-real-time. We discuss the findings from used models, outlining limitations, and providing a scenario for future ubiquitous IoT applications for tracking sea objects.