{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,18]],"date-time":"2026-08-18T12:31:16Z","timestamp":1787056276713,"version":"build-2736575974"},"reference-count":30,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"16","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,17]],"date-time":"2026-08-17T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1786924800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Copperbelt University Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Mining","award":["IDA 58030"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["IDA 58030"]}]},{"award":["IDA 58030"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["IDA 58030"]}],"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/03fgtjr33","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Sensors"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) systems are increasingly deployed in heavy industrial facilities to support real-time monitoring, automation, and safety-critical operations. Long-range low-power communication technologies such as LoRaWAN are widely used for large-scale sensor connectivity due to their long communication range and energy efficiency. However, dense industrial deployments may experience reduced communication reliability due to network congestion, packet collisions, and challenging propagation conditions caused by metallic infrastructure and electromagnetic interference. To address these limitations, this paper proposes RSrSF-LoRa, an integrated implementation of the reserved spreading factor (rSF) mechanism within the RS-LoRa framework (lightweight scheduling), designed to improve reliability for critical traffic. The study presents a comparative performance evaluation of RSrSF-LoRa and LoRaWAN in a smelter IIoT deployment, assessing packet delivery ratio (PDR), throughput, fairness, energy consumption and scalability under varying node densities and gateway configurations. Single-gateway scenarios with 100, 500, and 1000 nodes, and seven-gateway scenarios with 1000 and 2100 nodes, are evaluated as communication distances increase. The results indicate that while throughput and fairness remain comparable across approaches, RSrSF-LoRa improves alarm message reliability in dense single-gateway deployments, extending the acceptable PDR from 700 m to 900 m. Alarm nodes in RSrSF-LoRa consume slightly more energy due to reserved transmission, but overall energy consumption remains comparable. These findings provide design insights for reliable and energy-aware industrial IoT networks in smelter environments.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/s26165216","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,17]],"date-time":"2026-08-17T16:35:08Z","timestamp":1786984508000},"page":"5216","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Reliability Evaluation of RSrSF-LoRa and LoRaWAN for Dense Industrial IoT Networks in a Smelter Environment"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"26","author":[{"given":"Sonile K.","family":"Musonda","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Electrical Engineering, Copperbelt University, Kitwe 10101, Copperbelt, Zambia"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-4703-0760","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Musa","family":"Ndiaye","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Namibia, JEDS Campus, Ongwediva 15006, Oshana, Namibia"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0003-7196-5096","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Zilole","family":"Simate","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Computer Science, Namibia University of Science and Technology, Windhoek 9000, Khomas, Namibia"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Hastings M.","family":"Libati","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Computer Science, Copperbelt University, Kitwe 10101, Copperbelt, Zambia"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-6413-3924","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Adnan M.","family":"Abu-Mahfouz","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Pretoria 0083, Gauteng, South Africa"},{"name":"Department of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering, University of Pretoria, Pretoria 0002, Gauteng, South Africa"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,17]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"94","DOI":"10.1109\/MCOMSTD.2025.3572534","article-title":"Research Directions and Modeling Guidelines for Industrial Internet of Things Applications","volume":"9","author":"Cuozzo","year":"2025","journal-title":"IEEE Commun. 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