article · Sensors
Industrial Internet of Things networks deployed in heavy manufacturing settings, such as smelters, often suffer from reduced reliability caused by electromagnetic interference, metallic obstructions, and network congestion. To address these issues, this research introduces RSrSF-LoRa, an approach combining a reserved spreading factor mechanism with the lightweight scheduling framework of RS-LoRa to safeguard critical communication. Performance was benchmarked against standard LoRaWAN across single-gateway and seven-gateway configurations with densities scaling up to 2100 nodes over increasing distances. The findings show that RSrSF-LoRa matches standard LoRaWAN in overall throughput and fairness while significantly improving alarm message reliability in dense single-gateway environments. Specifically, the acceptable packet delivery ratio for alarm messages was extended from 700 metres to 900 metres. Although dedicated alarm nodes experienced a slight increase in power usage, total network energy consumption remained comparable.
Heavy industrial plants require dependable wireless communications to run safety-critical monitoring and automated processes. However, metal infrastructure and intense electrical noise frequently disrupt standard low-power network signals. Demonstrating how modified scheduling and frequency settings can extend the reliable range of critical alerts helps engineers design resilient, energy-aware industrial networks capable of operating in severe environments.
This technology is applicable to industrial automation and safety monitoring within harsh environments such as metal smelters and heavy industrial plants. It is targeted at industrial network engineers and IoT solutions providers. Based on comparative evaluation in a smelter deployment across varied node densities, the work represents applied, tested protocol design that could be adapted into commercial industrial sensor firmware.
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Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) systems are increasingly deployed in heavy industrial facilities to support real-time monitoring, automation, and safety-critical operations. Long-range low-power communication technologies such as LoRaWAN are widely used for large-scale sensor connectivity due to their long communication range and energy efficiency. However, dense industrial deployments may experience reduced communication reliability due to network congestion, packet collisions, and challenging propagation conditions caused by metallic infrastructure and electromagnetic interference. To address these limitations, this paper proposes RSrSF-LoRa, an integrated implementation of the reserved spreading factor (rSF) mechanism within the RS-LoRa framework (lightweight scheduling), designed to improve reliability for critical traffic. The study presents a comparative performance evaluation of RSrSF-LoRa and LoRaWAN in a smelter IIoT deployment, assessing packet delivery ratio (PDR), throughput, fairness, energy consumption and scalability under varying node densities and gateway configurations. Single-gateway scenarios with 100, 500, and 1000 nodes, and seven-gateway scenarios with 1000 and 2100 nodes, are evaluated as communication distances increase. The results indicate that while throughput and fairness remain comparable across approaches, RSrSF-LoRa improves alarm message reliability in dense single-gateway deployments, extending the acceptable PDR from 700 m to 900 m. Alarm nodes in RSrSF-LoRa consume slightly more energy due to reserved transmission, but overall energy consumption remains comparable. These findings provide design insights for reliable and energy-aware industrial IoT networks in smelter environments.
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DOI: 10.3390/s26165216
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