LP-INDEX: Explore the Best Practice of LPWAN Technologies in Smart City

Abstract

Internet of Things (IoT) based infrastructures and applications are essential parts in smart city establishment. The low power wide area network (LPWAN) plays a key role in IoT techniques due to the characteristics of wide coverage and low power consumption. However, it is hard to decide which one of the LPWAN techniques to be implemented in a specific application for best practice. Considering this, we discussed the main characteristics of the three popular LPWAN technologies, LoRaWAN, NB-IoT, and Sigfox, and proposed an LP-INDEX to weighting them according to application requirements. To further distinguish their difference, a comparison test based on parking detection sensors using the three different techniques was implemented as a use case.