Virtualizing and simulating LoRaWAN : An experimental approach to virtualizing and simulating a network environment to stress test a LoRaWAN network.

Abstract: The goal of this individual assignment work has been to implement a experimental environment to load and stress test a virtualized LoRaWAN network together with a LoRa simulation tool through the use of open source software. By researching theory and open source software connected to IoT, LoRa, LoRaWAN, virtualization, simulation and monitoring a experimental environment was implemented for launching test scenarios to stress and load test the virtualized LoRaWAN network. The experimental environment is built on the researched and chosen software Proxmox, Chirpstack, Lorhammer, Prometheus, Grafana and Wireshark. The resulting implementation rendered measurable results in regards to system load, incoming network traffic and UDP errors handled by the Chirpstack Network server through simulated LoRa network scenarios configured for the Lorhammer simulation tool.