Physical Vulnerability Evaluation of LoRaWAN Network-based Cyber-Physical Systems Under Electromagnetic Interference

LoRaWAN is a crucial communication protocol for cyber-physical systems. Therefore, it is important to study the performance and check its reliability. This paper investigates the performance of LoRaWAN under Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) conditions using a safety-critical case study that encompasses typical scenarios. A system was developed to monitor environmental parameters. The end transmitter device, equipped with a LoRa module, sends data to a gateway connected to a monitoring system. Initial experiments were created based on different payload sizes. Each one was repeated multiple times, with both horizontal and vertical antennas. Evaluation metrics such as packet loss rate, delay, SNR, and RSSI were analyzed. Experiments were conducted in compliance with IEC 61000-4-3 standard, covering 80 MHz to 1 GHz, while excluding LoRa working frequency. Results show that the LoRa module exhibits high robustness to EMI up to 1 GHz. Firstly, no packet loss happened. Secondly, initial failures in 150-380 MHz range were resolved by adding a shield clamp. Thirdly, variations in packet size did not significantly impact performance metrics. Experiments with a vertical antenna resulted in slightly worse RSSI and SNR compared to a horizontal antenna, however all values remained within acceptable limits by standard. Overall, the LoRa module demonstrated effective performance against EMI, proving its reliability for IoT applications in such conditions.