LoRa: Overview of this technology & its protocol LoRaWAN

What is LoRa?

 

LoRa is a radio communication technology, developed by a startup from Grenoble bought by an american company called Semtech in 2012.

The 4 letters of LoRa stand for Long Range and they describe the objective of this technology: ensure long distance information transfer.

LoRa uses the band frequency 868MHz (UHF) which is free and free of use. The specific modulation of LoRa allows you to obtain a reach of several kilometers (up to 20km) with a weak transmission power.

This characteristic makes it the ideal solution for the world of connected objects or smarcity, making it possible to design sensors working several years with a simple battery. In return for this low consumption, the communication bitrate is limited to an average of several bits per hour.

 

What is LoRaWAN?

 

The LoRa protocol is especially adapted to the design of extended networks called LoRaWAN. Data issued by LoRa objects are received by terminals deployed on a wide territory and centralised in a cloud service.

Each actor is free to create its own LoRaWAN, but considering the heaviness of the investments, it is common to use the services of an operator like Orange or Objenious (Bouygues Telecom) giving the payment of a bundle of a dozen euros by year and by object.

Security mechanisms of LoRa (authentication key on the network and key for data encryption) ensure the confidentiality of your data at all stages of their life: first shaped as a radio wave, then shaped as computing data on the network and on the operator server.

 

Our experience with our partner

A company specialised in facilities and services around bike practice, has asked SpringCard to develop a sensor allowing the follow-up of bike parking occupation.

The important number of sensors needed made an operated solution expensive.

Simultaneously, the concentration of sensors on a restraint territory allowed to consider the implementation of a limited number of terminals.

Beyond the design of the sensor, SpringCard also designed and draw an independant LoRa system, based on a LoRa 3G+ sold by Kerlink, and an open-source software solution (loraserver.io). The industrialisation of the cloud service will be realised by Atos.

 

You have a LoRa or IoT project ? 

 

We are here to support you and help you with the development of LoRa objects as well as a data centralisation system, operated or non-operated, adapted to your operational constraints and TCO objectives. 

Contact us at: sales@springcard.com

Published on 2/22/2018