A systematic and comprehensive review on low power wide area network: characteristics, architecture, applications and research challenges

Abstract The Internet of Things (IoT) has become a rapidly growing research field. This is due to the advancement of digital technologies, miniaturization, and the reduction of the cost of IoT devices and wireless connectivity, among others. Despite the plethora of technologies used for the Internet...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Ass Diane, Ousmane Diallo, El Hadji Malick Ndoye
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Springer 2025-01-01
Series:Discover Internet of Things
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1007/s43926-025-00097-6
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1832585457598201856
author Ass Diane
Ousmane Diallo
El Hadji Malick Ndoye
author_facet Ass Diane
Ousmane Diallo
El Hadji Malick Ndoye
author_sort Ass Diane
collection DOAJ
description Abstract The Internet of Things (IoT) has become a rapidly growing research field. This is due to the advancement of digital technologies, miniaturization, and the reduction of the cost of IoT devices and wireless connectivity, among others. Despite the plethora of technologies used for the Internet of Things, the trade-off between long data transmission range and low power consumption was not found until the advent of Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) technologies. This paper reviews the main aspects of LPWANs and their technologies based on an exhaustive search in several online scientific databases, such as Springer, IEEE Xplore, the ACM digital library, and Google Scholar. This research methodology enabled us to gather recent work on LPWANs, which forms the basis of this article. It is informative and knowledge-updating support in the LPWANs’ environment that broadly covers LPWANs. This research work has developed the characteristics of LPWANs and the techniques used to achieve long-range energy efficiency, high scalability, and low cost. In addition, it presents the application areas of LPWAN technologies with use-case network architectures for each area, addresses spectrum and energy optimization, and discusses open research challenges that need to be focused to provide guidelines for further contributions.
format Article
id doaj-art-db6296a0227244619eceace46ee72389
institution Kabale University
issn 2730-7239
language English
publishDate 2025-01-01
publisher Springer
record_format Article
series Discover Internet of Things
spelling doaj-art-db6296a0227244619eceace46ee723892025-01-26T12:48:30ZengSpringerDiscover Internet of Things2730-72392025-01-015112610.1007/s43926-025-00097-6A systematic and comprehensive review on low power wide area network: characteristics, architecture, applications and research challengesAss Diane0Ousmane Diallo1El Hadji Malick Ndoye2The LI3 (Laboratoire d’informatique Et d’ingénierie Pour L’innovation) Laboratory, Department of Computer Science, Assane SECK University of ZiguinchorThe LI3 (Laboratoire d’informatique Et d’ingénierie Pour L’innovation) Laboratory, Department of Computer Science, Assane SECK University of ZiguinchorThe LI3 (Laboratoire d’informatique Et d’ingénierie Pour L’innovation) Laboratory, Department of Computer Science, Assane SECK University of ZiguinchorAbstract The Internet of Things (IoT) has become a rapidly growing research field. This is due to the advancement of digital technologies, miniaturization, and the reduction of the cost of IoT devices and wireless connectivity, among others. Despite the plethora of technologies used for the Internet of Things, the trade-off between long data transmission range and low power consumption was not found until the advent of Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) technologies. This paper reviews the main aspects of LPWANs and their technologies based on an exhaustive search in several online scientific databases, such as Springer, IEEE Xplore, the ACM digital library, and Google Scholar. This research methodology enabled us to gather recent work on LPWANs, which forms the basis of this article. It is informative and knowledge-updating support in the LPWANs’ environment that broadly covers LPWANs. This research work has developed the characteristics of LPWANs and the techniques used to achieve long-range energy efficiency, high scalability, and low cost. In addition, it presents the application areas of LPWAN technologies with use-case network architectures for each area, addresses spectrum and energy optimization, and discusses open research challenges that need to be focused to provide guidelines for further contributions.https://doi.org/10.1007/s43926-025-00097-6IoTLPWANStandardizationArchitectureApplicationsResearch challenges
spellingShingle Ass Diane
Ousmane Diallo
El Hadji Malick Ndoye
A systematic and comprehensive review on low power wide area network: characteristics, architecture, applications and research challenges
Discover Internet of Things
IoT
LPWAN
Standardization
Architecture
Applications
Research challenges
title A systematic and comprehensive review on low power wide area network: characteristics, architecture, applications and research challenges
title_full A systematic and comprehensive review on low power wide area network: characteristics, architecture, applications and research challenges
title_fullStr A systematic and comprehensive review on low power wide area network: characteristics, architecture, applications and research challenges
title_full_unstemmed A systematic and comprehensive review on low power wide area network: characteristics, architecture, applications and research challenges
title_short A systematic and comprehensive review on low power wide area network: characteristics, architecture, applications and research challenges
title_sort systematic and comprehensive review on low power wide area network characteristics architecture applications and research challenges
topic IoT
LPWAN
Standardization
Architecture
Applications
Research challenges
url https://doi.org/10.1007/s43926-025-00097-6
work_keys_str_mv AT assdiane asystematicandcomprehensivereviewonlowpowerwideareanetworkcharacteristicsarchitectureapplicationsandresearchchallenges
AT ousmanediallo asystematicandcomprehensivereviewonlowpowerwideareanetworkcharacteristicsarchitectureapplicationsandresearchchallenges
AT elhadjimalickndoye asystematicandcomprehensivereviewonlowpowerwideareanetworkcharacteristicsarchitectureapplicationsandresearchchallenges
AT assdiane systematicandcomprehensivereviewonlowpowerwideareanetworkcharacteristicsarchitectureapplicationsandresearchchallenges
AT ousmanediallo systematicandcomprehensivereviewonlowpowerwideareanetworkcharacteristicsarchitectureapplicationsandresearchchallenges
AT elhadjimalickndoye systematicandcomprehensivereviewonlowpowerwideareanetworkcharacteristicsarchitectureapplicationsandresearchchallenges