# Performance Evaluation of LoRa Communications in Harsh Industrial Environments
## 2 Related Work  
The ability to provide long-range communication at low power consumption makes LoRa technology a wise choice for IIoT applications. However, industrial environments are often noisy, with sources of electromagnetic noise such as electronic equipment, communications equipment, and heavy machinery, which can have a negative impact on the performance of this technology [22]. Studies have been carried out to assess LoRa's performance in these environments, such as the work in [23], whose authors examined the effect of industrial and AWGN noise on LoRa communication systems. The results showed a significant degradation in signal quality in the presence of impulse noise compared with Gaussian noise, with BER values ranging from \(10^{-2}\) to \(10^{-3}\) for both types of noise. Furthermore, the results of the study conducted by [24] confirmed that the use of LoRa in multi-propagation mining environments results in a performance reduction of 2.5 to 6 decibels for different spreading factors (SF) at a BER of \(10^{-3}\), compared with the AWGN channel. In the same context, LoRa's performance was evaluated under various noise conditions by [25], who demonstrated that this technology can maintain robust communication even in noisy environments, making it suitable for a wide range of IoT and IIoT application scenarios. Furthermore, in [26], researchers studied the impact of impulsive noise on Lora communication systems. The results indicated that a higher spreading factor effectively reduces noise impulsiveness after FFT. This led to a notable decrease in SNR loss. Yet, it caused more delay and used more power. In addition, the work done in [19] has shown that LoRa can be used in industrial areas. This research evaluates the operation and applicability of LoRa technology in an industrial environment. The authors considered two factories with different machines and production processes. Measurements were taken in a LOS configuration between sensor nodes and gateways. The results show that the SNR, RSSI, and PER parameters show little degradation in connection quality in the industrial environment analyzed. Further research has been carried out to evaluate the use of LoRa technology in industrial environments. In this regard, research was done by [14] tested LoRa communication for short-range use. The results showed that the use of this technology had no significant negative impact on reliability or packet loss and that data rates equivalent to 21,875 bps were achieved, which could be sufficient for certain non-critical industrial applications. In [27], the performance of a LoRaWAN network was evaluated in industrial scenarios where IIoT nodes communicate with a central controller to optimize industrial processes and reduce costs. The authors tested different scenarios, including confirmed and unconfirmed traffic, multi-gateway deployments, the use of different device classes, and a non-standard channel plan. The results showed that, with appropriate configuration, LoRaWAN was able to serve IIoT sensing applications with a packet success rate of over 90% and limited communication delays. These results highlight the importance of network configuration for optimum performance in industrial environments. The presence of obstacles such as tall buildings in harsh environments poses challenges for the implementation of LoRaWAN networks. A research study was carried out [28] to evaluate the propagation characteristics of LoRa communications at 920 MHz in a harsh environment. In this work, the authors measured the average values of the received signal strength indicator (RSSI) on a campus to evaluate the probability of communication failure and the path loss model. The results showed that the harsh environment leads to a reduction in the communication area. The authors in [29] presented a concrete example of the use of LoRa technology in industry in a specific context. In this example, numerous carts need to communicate with a server as they move across an auction floor.