System-Level Performance Analysis of LoRa-Based LEO Satellite Constellations for IoT Communications

In this letter, we propose a novel spherical stochastic geometry (SG)-based analytical framework for characterizing the system-level performance of Long-Range (LoRa)-based low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellations. Specifically, the LEO satellite constellations and the terrestrial LoRa end-devices (EDs) are modeled by a Binomial point process (BPP) and Poisson point process (PPP), respectively. Tractable analytical expressions are derived for the uplink coverage probability and area spectral efficiency, where the trends of both performance metrics are unveiled with respect to the EDs’ density and the spreading factor (SF). In particular, the uplink coverage probability and the area spectral efficiency is proven to be a monotonically decreasing function and a unimodal function of the EDs’ density, respectively. Numerical simulations not only verify our theoretical analysis but also provide some useful insights into the practical design and implementation of LoRa-based LEO satellite constellations for Internet of Things (IoT) communications.