Radiocrafts has tested and confirmed our long-range expectations for Radiocrafts’ Industrial IP Mesh solution, RIIM! The results show that with a single hop RIIM can achieve a range of:
- Practical Line of Sight range in a rural area: 160 km
- Practical Line of Sight range with urban noise: 16 km
- No Line of Sight range in an urban environment: 300 – 1000 meters
Taking into consideration that the mesh network can support 28 hops, you can scale the coverage up to 40 by 40 km squared in urban environments.
Read more about the RIIM range test results and conditions in our updated application note, AN034: RIIM Range – Basics and Measurement Results.
The RC18x2HP-IPM modules (High Power RIIM modules) offer an extended range with a 27 dBm power output and an improved sensitivity compared to the normal variant of RIIM (RC1882CEF-IPM). The RIIM modules support 28 mesh hops to extend the rang even further.
Practical Line of Sight range with urban noise/rural area:
Radiocrafts measured the Line of Sight range for the High Power RIIM module on top of 2 mountains located 8 kilometres apart from each other. This range was achieved with a stable link for more than 30 consecutive packets with zero packet loss and an average RSSI of -83 dBm.
A longer range was not tested because there were no other Line of Sight areas in Oslo longer than 8 kilometres. Therefore, an 8km range with -83 dBm means that there is much margin for even greater range. In an urban environment with high background noise, expected range would be doubled, around 16km.
Whereas, in a rural area with minimal background noise, expected range would be up to 10 times longer, so 160 km.
No Line of Sight range with urban noise/rural area:
The point chosen for the non-Line of Sight urban environment range testing was at a point 545 meters away from Radiocrafts HQ. The test shows that no packet loss was registered for 60 seconds and the average RSSI received was -88 dBm.
Therefore, according to this experiment, it is safe to say that in a city environment with heavy traffic, background noise and many obstacles, a RIIM HP Mesh router can cover a circle with a radius of a bit more than 0.5km with zero packet loss and a good margin above receiver sensitivity.
In conclusion, RIIM is the correct technology to choose when planning to provide RF coverage for a dense city with minimal costs!
You can download the AN034: RIIM Range- Basics and Measurement Results here.
Do you want to test the RIIM HP range for your own long range application? Radiocrafts strongly recommends you buy a RIIM development. The development kit will allow you to quickly and easily create a wireless link or network where you can make a good analysis of the network performance. Click here to buy one!