LoRa-based Device-to-Device Smartphone Communication for Crisis Scenarios

EasyChair Preprint 2926

Abstract

In this paper, we present an approach to facilitate long-range device-to-device communication via smartphones in crisis scenarios. Through a custom firmware for low-cost LoRa capable micro-controller boards, called rf95modem, common devices for end users can be enabled to use LoRa through a Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or serial connection. We present two applications utilizing the flexibility provided by the proposed firmware. First, we introduce a novel device-to-device LoRa chat application that works a) on the two major mobile platforms Android and iOS and b) on traditional computers like notebooks using a console-based interface. Second, we demonstrate how other infrastructure-less technology can benefit from our approach by integrating it into the DTN7 delay-tolerant networking software. The firmware, the device-to-device chat application, the integration into DTN7, as well as the experimental evaluation code fragments are available under permissive open-source licenses.

Keyphrases: Disaster Communication, LoRa, device-to-device communication

@booklet{EasyChair:2926,
  author    = {Jonas Höchst and Lars Baumgärtner and Franz Kuntke and Alvar Penning and Artur Sterz and Bernd Freisleben},
  title     = {LoRa-based Device-to-Device Smartphone Communication for Crisis Scenarios},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 2926},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2020}}