FAST-LoRa: An Efficient Simulation Framework for Evaluating LoRaWAN Networks and Transmission Parameter Strategies

The Internet of Things (IoT) has transformed many industries, and LoRaWAN (Long Range Wide Area Network), built on LoRa (Long Range) technology, has become a crucial solution for enabling scalable, low-cost, and energy-efficient communication in wide-area networks. Simulation tools are essential for optimizing the transmission parameters and, therefore, the energy efficiency and performance of LoRaWAN networks, where energy efficiency is widely recognized as a primary performance objective in distributed and parallel systems. However, although existing simulation frameworks can accurately represent LoRaWAN behavior by modeling multiple protocol layers or by focusing on specific network aspects, they often suffer from high computational cost and limited flexibility when fast and systematic exploration of transmission parameter configurations is required. To address this issue, we introduce FAST-LoRa, a novel simulation framework designed to enable fast and efficient evaluation of LoRaWAN networks and selection of transmission parameters. FAST-LoRa streamlines computation by relying on analytical models without complex packet-level simulations and implementing gateway reception using efficient matrix operations. We evaluate FAST-LoRa by employing a well-established simulator using multiple network configurations with varying numbers of end devices and gateways. The results show that FAST-LoRa achieves similar accuracy in estimating key network metrics, even in complex scenarios with interference and multi-gateway reception, with a Mean Absolute Error (MAE) of 0.940 ×10−2for the Packet Delivery Ratio (PDR) and 0.040 bits/mJ for Energy Efficiency (EE), while significantly reducing computational time by up to three orders of magnitude.