Experimental Evaluation of LR-FHSS: A Comparison with LoRa.

Long-Range Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (LR-FHSS) is the newest modulation in LoRaWAN, designed to overcome the scalability and coverage limits of conventional LoRa. This study provides a real-world evaluation of LR-FHSS performance, benchmarking it directly against LoRa. An outdoor campaign was conducted in urban and semi-urban scenarios in and near the city of Castelldefels using a complete LR-FHSS-enabled network and an end-device transmitting at LoRa and LR-FHSS data rates (DRs). Measurements were collected along four diverse paths, capturing key metrics such as Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) and Packet Delivery Ratio (PDR). The results clearly underline the advantages of LR-FHSS; while LoRa at DR0 and DR5 quickly lost connectivity beyond 1.5-2 km, LR-FHSS, particularly at DR8 and DR10, kept reliable links at 3-4 km. LR-FHSS robustness was most evident in non-line-of-sight (NLoS) and long-range scenarios. These findings highlight LR-FHSS as a strong candidate for future IoT deployments, offering extended range and higher robustness in challenging environments.