Current testing and performance evaluation methodologies of LoRa and LoRaWAN in IoT applications: Classification, issues, and future directives

Long Range (LoRa) and Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN) are emerging technologies essential in connecting and managing a wide range of devices in various Internet of Things (IoT) systems. Testing and evaluation methods play a crucial role in assessing and optimizing the performance of these technologies before their deployment in real-world IoT applications. Previous review studies focused mainly on the comparison of current Low-Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN) technologies, evaluating the performance of LoRa and LoRaWAN platforms for a general or specific application, or in a single testing methodology. However, the literature does not include any articles dedicated to comprehensively reviewing the current testing scenarios and performance evaluation methodologies used in LoRa-based or LoRaWAN-based networks deployed for IoT systems. Hence, this paper aims to review the state-of-the-art studies on LoRa and LoRaWAN test and evaluation methods in various IoT applications. In this paper, these studies are critically reviewed and classified according to their test parameters, test architectures, and performance evaluation methodologies. Additionally, a summary and unified view of test and evaluation methodologies to assess the performance characteristics of LoRa and LoRaWAN in IoT-driven applications is presented. Lastly, the issues and challenges behind these test cases and evaluation methods are identified, and the possible future directions of this research domain are discussed.