Communications - Scientific Letters of the University of Zilina 2025, 27(4):E46-E62

Geolocation of Devices in Low-Power Wide-Area LoRa Network

Ladislav Zemko ORCID...*, Daniel Hroš ORCID..., Alexander Valach ORCID..., Marek Galinski ORCID..., Pavel Čičák ORCID...
Institute of Computer Engineering and Applied Informatics, Faculty of Informatics and Information Technologies, Slovak University of Technology, Bratislava, Slovakia


This article is focused on the geolocation possibilities in low-power deployments. A novel Logarithmic Distance Path Loss Model with a Memory (LDPL-M) algorithm is proposed to enhance the accuracy of determining the location of end devices. The proposed solution, utilizing the RSSI-based trilateration, proved more accurate by 24.54% compared to the conventional Logarithmic Distance Path Loss Model (LDPL). Compared to the Global Positioning System (GPS), the power consumption was 48.8% lower. These findings make it suitable for energy-harvesting deployments, environments with limited power supply, or generally hard-to-reach areas, covering various logistics, transportation, or asset tracking scenarios. Overall, in this article, a valuable insight into the geolocation, focusing on the accuracy and efficiency, is provided.

Keywords: LoRa, LoRaWAN, geolocation, IoT, LPWAN, RSSI, trilateration
Grants and funding:

Funded by the EU NextGenerationEU through the Recovery and Resilience Plan for Slovakia under the project No. 09I05-03-V02-00012. This project has been supported by APVV-23-0137 project "Legal and technical aspects of cybersecurity situational awareness". The authors would like to thank for financial contribution from the STU Grant scheme for Support of Young Researchers. The authors would also like to express their gratitude to Slovanet, a.s. for granting access to the public provider network and borrowing the equipment necessary for the research.

Conflicts of interest:

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this article.

Received: May 19, 2025; Accepted: August 6, 2025; Prepublished online: September 19, 2025; Published: October 7, 2025  Show citation

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Zemko, L., Hroš, D., Valach, A., Galinski, M., & Čičák, P. (2025). Geolocation of Devices in Low-Power Wide-Area LoRa Network. Communications - Scientific Letters of the University of Zilina, 27(4), E46-62
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