# Evaluating LoRaWAN Connectivity in a Marine Scenario
## 4 Conclusions  
The paper describes the results of the project titled \"IoT Technologies for the marine environment\". The key objective of the project consisted in designing adaptive meshed networks of sensors with the layered architecture based on the IoT concept. Such networks are capable of communicating and auto-adapting to the changing requirements and conditions typical of a marine environment. To achieve this, an IoT network constituted of end-nodes able to monitor water quality and environmental parameters over the sea, gateways, network, and application servers was designed, implemented, and tested at sea in both LOS and NLOS conditions. A passenger vessel assuring the public transport service in Genoa harbor and the R/V Dallaporta navigating in the Ligurian basin during an oceanographic cruise in October 2020 have been used for the experimental evaluation.  
These tests have been carried out to demonstrate the capability of a radio transmission based on LoRaWAN protocol to routinely transfer data between the open sea and the land for distances greater than 110 km under the hypothesis of LOS, without any major obstacles except for natural landscape along the channel. The effectiveness of the transmission was also tested in a coastal scenario where the presence of buildings near the shore affected the path loss in a non-negligible way. Promising performances have been obtained which suggest that autonomous IoT sensors, that are compact, low-power, and easy to manage, can be deployed on existing networks of marine infrastructures. Indeed, the main goal is to obtain real-time data without the need for expensive transmission systems as well as to support authorities to monitor, at a basin scale, the presence of leisure boats in protected marine areas or to provide them with safety information. The number of end-nodes usually needed for the described applications can be estimated in several tens, being this figure within the capacity of a LoRaWAN network, especially if constituted of multiple gateways [39; 40; 41]. Although the duration of the tests was limited to fulfill the European duty-cycle rule, due to the schedule of the passenger vessel and to the limited availability of ship time for R/V Dallaporta, it is more than feasible that the results can be replicable considering the same operational conditions.  
Conceptualization and methodology, S.P., F.V. and R.B.; development of IoT end-nodes and software related, C.C., S.S., S.B.S., G.M., D.S., M.P. and L.M.; LoRaWAN server implementation, C.D. and I.M.; web services implementation, A.C.; in-situ test, S.P., F.V., R.B., C.C. and S.S., formal analysis, S.P., R.B.; writing--original draft preparation, S.P., R.B.; writing--review and editing, S.P., F.V. and R.B.; funding acquisition, C.C., A.C., D., I.M., S.S. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.  
This research received partial funding through the grant \"IoT technologies for the marine environment\" of the Regional Operational Program of the European Regional Development Fund (POR FESR 2014-2020--protocol number 0006806) \"Axis 1 Research and Innovation--Action 1.2.4 Support for the implementation of complex research and development projects for companies aggregated to the regional research and innovation centers\".