Project OPR: A Cloud-Optimized Link Layer for Low-Power Wide-Area Networks



As Low-Power Wide-Area Networking (LPWAN) deployments scale, they will increasingly face challenges with spectrum crowding. This is compounded by sub-GHz devices being used in home and office environments that transmit at higher data rates for shorter distances amplifying the near-far impact on wider area networks leading to client retries. In this paper, we present a technique called OPR that uses hints about potential error bit locations in received packets to recover data that normally would have failed packet integrity checks in LoRaWAN networks. We leverage the fact that LPWAN networks can easily offload packet processing to the cloud with ample compute time per packet (order of seconds) and that packets are often received by multiple gateways. By using a combination of energy sensing across the packet and bit-level consensus across gateways, we can identify candidate regions within a packet that are most likely to be corrupt.

Citation

  • A Cloud-Optimized Link Layer for Low-Power Wide-Area Networks, Artur Balanuta, Nuno Pereira, Swarun Kumar and Anthony Rowe, MobiSys 2020 [PAPER]