Cellular Simulation for Distributed Sensing over Complex Terrains

Long-range radio transmissions open new sensor application fields, in particular for environment monitoring. For example, the LoRa radio protocol enables connecting remote sensors at a distance as long as ten kilometers in a line-of-sight. However, the large area covered also brings several difficulties, such as the placement of sensing devices in regards to topology in geography, or the variability of communication latency. Sensing the environment also carries constraints related to the interest of sensing points in relation to a physical phenomenon. Thus, criteria for designs are evolving a lot from the existing methods, especially in complex terrains. This article describes simulation techniques based on geography analysis to compute long-range radio coverages and radio characteristics in these situations. As radio propagation is just a particular case of physical phenomena, it is shown how a unified approach also allows for characterizing the behavior of potential physical risks. The case of heavy rainfall and flooding is investigated. Geography analysis is achieved using segmentation tools to produce cellular systems which are in turn translated into code for high-performance computations. The paper provides results from practical complex terrain experiments using LoRa, which confirm the accuracy of the simulation, and scheduling characteristics for sample networks. Performance tables are produced for these simulations on current Graphics Processing Units (GPUs).