Channel Characterisation for Wearable LoRaWAN Monitors

This paper presents the results of a campaign to investigate the empirical characterisation and mathematic modelling of the radio channel for a body-centric LoRaWAN (Long Range Wide Area Network) transceiver for various operating distances across various environments including urban, suburban, and rural. The radio channel for a wearable LoRa transceiver device was explored, as well as anechoic measurements to understand body-shadowing effects. Results indicate that the best fit model for all recorded received signal strength measurements (using the Akaike information criterion to fit) is the Nakagami distribution with mu = 0.52 and Ω = 662.13. Anechoic measurements indicated typical additional effects regarding the orientation of the user with respect to the gateway location. This work highlights LoRaWAN as a credible wearable wireless technology.