Supporting data communications in IoT-enabled waste management

The Internet of Things (IoT) enables Smart Cities with novel services. Such services demand low power, high throughput and low-cost sensor data collection technologies. The number of devices, their variety, the breadth of their distribution, and the number of standards are continuously increasing. In this paper, we explore and critically analyze emerging IoT communication technologies. LoRaWAN has been selected for deployment in the smart waste management system (SWM) for collecting data from smart garbage bins. The paper proposes an architecture for SWM data collection and delivery as part of St. Petersburg pilot of Horizon-2020 bIoTope project. Extensive experiments with actual sensors and smart garbage bins were conducted for stress-testing the LoRaWAN technology, analyzing data rates and power consumption. The paper concludes with lessons learned and LoRaWAN wider deployment feasibility and improvements discussion.