Resources for LoRa and LoRaWAN

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This paper summarizes resources for LoRa and LoRaWAN.

LoRaWAN Architecture
LoRaWAN Architecture. Source: Page 8 of the white paper A technical overview of LoRa® and LoRaWAN™"

Overview

LoRa is a new IoT technique which is very suitable for energy efficient and long range communications. Sometimes peopole use LoRa as the physical layer modualtion technique while LoRaWAN as the MAC protocol and also the network structure. In other cases, you may also see that LoRa is used as a general term to represent LoRa/LoRaWAN. A good tutorial and summary of the LoRa and LoRaWAN can be found at link.

LoRa

LoRa (Long Range) is an IoT wireless technology patented by Smetech. It defines the physical layer modulation.

Understand LoRa modulation

  • LoRa modem with LimeSDR Link
  • Understanding LoRa RF modulation link

LoRaWAN

LoRaWAN is a media access control (MAC) protocol for wide area networks. It is defined by LoRa Alliance

LoRaWAN is not the only MAC protocol for LoRa. Symphony Link is also available. A difference between Symphony Link and LoRaWAN can be found here

Standard

The first LoRaWAN specification was published on January 2015 (download link) and the lastest LoRaWAN specifications is LoRaWAN® Specification v1.0.3 (July 2018) download link.

Many LoRaWAN protocol implementations may not support the lastest version. For example, pycom devices only support LoRaWAN 1.0.2. The previous versions of LoRaWAN specifications can be accessed from https://lora-alliance.org/resource-hub

Tutorial

LoRaWAN Network Server

LoRaWAN Demo at University of Liverpool

A LoRaWAN demo has been created at the Adavenced Networks Research Group (ANRG), University of Liverpool. The demo built a complete LoRaWAN-based IoT system, including FiPy end devices, gateway, and applications. A detailed introduction can be found at link.

A public LoRaWAN gateway hosted at The Things Network by ANRG Link. The gateway was built following the instruction here

Resources

Hardware

Development tool

  • mbed LoRaWAN APIs link
  • Arduino LMIC link
  • Arduino RadioHead (not supporting LoRaWAN) link
  • Pycom micropython LoRa/LoRaWAN modules link

FAQ

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