Design and Study of LoRa-Based IIoT Network for Underground Coal Mine Environment

The paper presents a novel LoRa-based IIoT system for monitoring the underground coal mine environment. Additionally, a new adaptive data rate algorithm for mesh network topology is proposed to optimize the data rate and maximize the coverage distance. Maximum coverage distance is achieved with a minimum number of repeaters. However, unlike previous works, the current work takes into account the power constraints in the underground coal mine environment, and most low-power consumption system is presented with an intelligent design approach. The implementation of the proposed adaptive data rate algorithm achieves 1.46 Kbps data rate at spreading factor 9, bandwidth 125 KHz, and transmitted power 11 dBm and extended the battery life of the deployed end nodes. The deployed end nodes achieved a maximum of 180 m under diffused line-of-sight condition at the roadway region of the operational mine. The relevant parameters are measured from the operational mine. Finally, the hardware is fabricated and the proposed system is validated in an operational underground coal mine.