Experiments of LoRa to Develop Services for Tourists

Abstract

Low Power Wide Area (LPWA) is now becoming popular for long-range license-free wireless communication technology. Bluetooth and WiFi are commonly used for the license-free near field communication technique. However, they can cover 100 m or near. LPWA can provide news services for long distance communication in the rural area. We have been developing a sightseeing support application using BLE beacon for six years near the World Heritage “Nikko” and now expanding a service area to “Oku-Nikko” where is a mountain area with huge mush and waterfalls, lakes, and mountains. A sightseeing support application for Oku-Nikko requires to provide information about safety since there is a mountain area. For that purpose, it is essential to observe hikers in the broad field, and low cost, long distance telecommunication system is required. To design the tourist support network in Oku-Nikko, we firstly understand the transmission model of LoRa. For that purpose, we performed some test to measure the transmission distance of LoRa in different environments. In this paper, we would like to explain an experiment of LoRa in Nikko National Park and around Utsunomiya University. We discuss that results of the experiment show the one possibility to explain the transmission model of LoRa in Oku-Nikko and Utsunomiya was Okumura-Hata model.