A LoRa-based protocol for connecting IoT edge computing nodes to provide small-data-based services

Data is becoming increasingly personal. Individuals regularly interact with a variety of structured data, ranging from SQLite databases on the phone to personal sensors and open government data. The “digital traces left by individuals through these interactions” are sometimes referred to as “small data”. Examples of “small data” include driving records, biometric measurements, search histories, weather forecasts and usage alerts. In this paper, we present a flexible protocol called LoRaCTP, which is based on LoRa technology that allows data “chunks” to be transferred over large distances with very low energy expenditure. LoRaCTP provides all the mechanisms necessary to make LoRa transfer reliable by introducing a lightweight connection setup and allowing the ideal sending of an as-long-as necessary data message. We designed this protocol as communication support for small-data edge-based IoT solutions, given its stability, low power usage, and the possibility to cover long distances. We evaluated our protocol using various data content sizes and communication distances to demonstrate its performance and reliability.