**Giorgos Tsapparellas 1, Nanlin Jin 2,\*, Xuewu Dai <sup>3</sup> and Gerhard Fehringer <sup>2</sup>**


Received: 31 July 2020; Accepted: 2 September 2020; Published: 8 September 2020

**Abstract:** Internet of things (IoT) systems generate a large volume of data all the time. How to choose and transfer which data are essential for decision-making is a challenge. This is especially important for low-cost and low-power designs, for example Long-Range Wide-Area Network (LoRaWan)-based IoT systems, where data volume and frequency are constrained by the protocols. This paper presents an unsupervised learning approach using Laplacian scores to discover which types of sensors can be reduced, without compromising the decision-making. Here, a type of sensor is a feature. An IoT system is designed and implemented for a plant-monitoring scenario. We have collected data and carried out the Laplacian scores. The analytical results help choose the most important feature. A comparative study has shown that using fewer types of sensors, the accuracy of decision-making remains at a satisfactory level.

**Keywords:** Laplacian scores; data reduction; sensors; Internet of Things (IoT); LoRaWAN
