Review of LPWAN solutions and focus on LoRa, LoRaWAN and TTN is done. Announcement of OSHW LoRa and LoRaWAN designed by Olimex Ltd

1. OpenFest, (C) 2018 Released under CC BY-SA-3.0
LoRa, LoraWAN and The Things
Network : capabilities, myths,
applications and limitations

2. $whoami
(Tsvetan Usunov === OLIMEX Ltd)
A small company established in Plovdiv,
Bulgaria, 27 years ago, which deals with
electronic design and production.
More than 600 original products designed,
developed and produced in Bulgaria.
Many of them are Open Source Hardware.

3. LoRa
One of the most popular LPWAN
technologies today.
Developed in France by Cycleo, a company
acquired by Semtech in 2012.
Adopted by hundreds of vendors.
Deployed in hundreds of applications.

4. What is LPWAN?
Low Power Wide Area Network
Short range: Bluetooth, Zigbee, Zwave
Long range:
LoRa, SigFox, Weightless, NB-Fi, NB-IoT

5. SigFox
Technology developed in France
FRQ 868/915Mhz
BW 100Hz
DR 160bps
DIST 2 km urban, 20 km rural
PLD 12 byte UL, 8 byte DL
Daily limits, GTW subscription only
Good coverage in EU

6. Weightless
Technology developed in Cambridge in UK
Weightless-W
FRQ 480-790Mhz UL/DL DR up to 1Mbps,
PLD 48 byte, 3-5 years
Weightless-N
FRQ 800-900Mhz UL DR up to 100kbps, 10 years
Weightless-P
FRQ 433/868/915Mhz, UL DL DR 625bps to 100kbps,
3-8 years
DIST 2 km urban, 10 km rural
first hardware 2017, expensive

7. NB-Fi
Technology developed in Russia by
WAVIoT.
FRQ 868/915Mhz, BW 100Hz, DR 100bps
DIST 10-15km urban, 50km rural
SDR base station, ONsemi transciever
Encrypted, full duplex, expensive

8. NB-IoT
Technology developed by 3GPP (3rd
Generation Partnership Project – seven
major telecom standardization
organizations 2G/3G/4G/5G)
Simplified LTE (0G), BW 180kHz,
DR 50kbps UL 60kbps DL
Expensive, operator model

9. LoRa
FRQ 433/868/915Mhz
BW 125/250/500kHz
DR 292-5500/50000 bps
PLD 51-222 bytes
128 AES encrypted
DIST 2 km urban, 10-15 km rural

11. LoRa modulation
Chirp-Spread-Spectrum (CSS) modulation
known and used for decades for military
and space communication.

12. Spreading Factor (SF): 7-12
The higher the SF the more information
transmitted per bit
Bandwidth (BW): 125kHz, 250kHz, 500kHz
narrower BW = increased receive
sensitivity, but increased time on air

14. Longest distance LoRa configuration:
Spreading Factor (SF) = SF12
Bandwidth (BW) = 125 kHz
Coding Rate (CR) = 4/5
Corresponds to DR 292 bps
Longest message is 51 bytes
Time On Air = 2466 ms 2.4 seconds(!)

15. Longest distance LoRa Power Budged:
SX1276 Tx current = 30mA (+ 10mA)
Lithium 3V AA battery capacity 2700mAh
2700*60*60 = 9720000 mAsec
9720000 / (2.4 sec * 40mA)
= 101250 messages
5 years x 365 days = 1825 days we could
send x55 messages per day

16. Highest DR LoRa configuration:
Spreading Factor (SF) = SF7
Bandwidth (BW) = 125 kHz
Coding Rate (CR) = 4/5
Corresponds to DR 5468 bps
Longest message is 222 bytes
Time On Air = 40 ms

17. What makes LoRa attractive for use
Low cost for the equipment
No taxes for data traffic
Easy installation and maintenance RF
Long Distance
Low power – works for years on battery
AES128 encrypted

18. LoRa is just modulation technology.
For IoT infrastructure we need to manage
many nodes and here comes LoRaWAN

19. LoRaWAN infrastructure for IoT

20. LoRaWAN end-devices (motes):
Class-A Lowest power, bi-directonal,
end-device, UL is followed by two DL,
ALOHA protocol, end-device schedule
when new communication slot will be
with slight randomization.

21. LoRaWAN end-devices (motes):
Class-B low lattency, bi-directonal,
end-device, with scheduled receive slots,
ALOHA protocol, but in addition to the
random slots it also schedule fixed time
receive slots.

22. LoRaWAN end-devices (motes):
Class-C no lattency, bi-directonal,
end-device, with constant listening,
ALOHA protocol, but server can initiate
transmission at any time

23. IoT LoRaWAN applications
Utility metering – remote metering of
electricity, water, gas, heat.
Infrastructure monitoring – tank levels,
open / close storage doors logging.

24. IoT LoRaWAN applications
Tracking – pople, pets, cars.

25. IoT LoRaWAN applications
Environmental monitoring -
temperature, humidity, air pressure, dust
and fine particle, CO2, fires, floods,
earthquakes.

26. IoT LoRaWAN applications
Healthcare – patients monitoring, pulse,
temperature, fall sensors.

27. IoT LoRaWAN applications
Industrial monitoring (INDUSTRY 4.0) –
machine worktime, workload,
maintenance periods, working conditions.

28. IoT LoRaWAN applications
Park management – free park places,
subscriptions, automatic payments, blue,
green zone monitoring.

29. IoT LoRaWAN applications
Public transport – monitoring and
management, bus timing, traffic
displays.

30. IoT LoRaWAN applications
Waste management – waste bin
full sensors, waste collection
monitoring.

31. IoT LoRaWAN applications
Street lighting – automatic street
light on, off, broken lamp detection

32. IoT LoRaWAN applications
Interractive buttons – help, taxi,
services.
Electronic labels – storage
management, update of prices and
info automatically.

33. IoT LoRaWAN applications
Home security – motion, door, fire,
flood sensors.
Car security – long distance pager.

34. IoT LoRaWAN applications
Agroculture – remote irrigation
systems.

35. LoRaWAN limits
LoRaWAN Operates at licensee free
frequency band, but regulation of these
frequency require less than 1% time
occupancy on single channel.
This leads to maximum transmission time of
36 sec/hour in each sub-band for each end-
device.

36. LoRaWAN limits

37. What is available on the market?
Motes
https://lora-alliance.org/
130+ different products priced from
$12 to $500
None OSHW!

38. RN2483 from Microchip is very
popular and cost $10-12
active 40mA, sleep 25 uA
(Errata says: 100-150 uA,oops!)

39. R95W transciever cost $6.50 shipped from
China in small quantity.
Chinese knock-off chip, not original Semtech,
no certification

40. Gateways
Cisco, Kerlink, Lorier $xxxx
TTG EUR 300
RAK831 no server, no ntenna, no
power supply around $150 is the
lowest cost solution

41. The Good News:
There will be soon OSHW for
LoRa and LoRaWAN

42. LoRa868
OSHW
Based on SX1276
100% LoRa
compatible
UEXT connector
EUR 5.00

43. LoRa868WAN
OSHW
SX1276
Antenna
Battery
LP MCU with
LoRaWAN
stack
EUR 15.00

45. LoRa868WAN-
PARK
LoRa868
Antenna
Battery
MCU with
LoRaWAN stack
IP68 robust box
magnetic sensor
EUR 35.00

47. LoRa868WAN-LIGHT
LoRa modem, antenna, battery,
LP MCU with LoRaWAN stack,
power meter, RTC, tamper
protection
EUR 50.00

48. LoRa868WAN-ENV
LoRa modem, antenna, battery, LP
MCU with LoRaWAN stack
Temperature, Humidity, Air pressure
sensor, dust and fine air particle
sensor, waterflood, vibrations, CO2
options.
EUR 30-50.00

49. The Things Network: FOSS cloud
for LoRaWAN:

51. Around 5000 Gateways all around the world

52. About 40 in Bulgaria

53. Just 1 in Plovdiv (will change soon)

54. TTN structure

55. TTN format is JSON

56. To summary:
LoRa, TTN and LoRaWAN offer:
Low Cost, Low Power
Long Distance
endless IoT solutions
TTN is FOSS software to
connect LoRaWAN to cloud
Soon OSHW LoRa/LoRaWAN
boards are coming!

57. Questions?