Implementation of a driver and performance evaluation of LoRa wireless transceivers

Einleitung

Low Power Wide Area Networks have been strongly introduced in the Internet of Things. The LPWANs exploit sub-GHZ unlicensed frequency bands. LPWANs are characterized by long-range radio links, where its wireless portion uses a star topology. This obviates the need for complicated wireless mesh routing protocols which will greatly complicate the implementation of end devices and drive up power consumption. The “things” or the end devices are directly connected to one particular (or more) collector node defined as gateways, which provide the bridging to the IP world, with a single-hop link (similar to the topology of classic cellular networks). By the possibility of re-using the already existing infrastructure of the cellular networks, the coverage of large areas is hence simplified. Multiple LPWANs solutions have been lately emerging, offering the right balance of power consumption, bandwidth and coverage range at a suitable cost. As example of LPWAN available solutions in the market today, we can mention Ingenu (formerly On-Ramp Wireless), Sigfox and LoRa.

Aufgabenstellung

The project of this Master thesis is included in the context of evaluating the new long-range technology of wireless networks which is the Low Power Wide Area Network. The work will be focusing on LoRaWAN solution, where intended tasks can be basically summarized in:

• Use the STM32F4 Discovery board [10] with the FRTOS operating system in order to implement a driver for the LoRa radio transceiver.
• Evaluation of the communication/coverage range, power consumption, packet loss of the LoRa system in the city of Brunswick in different environment conditions, with a detailed specification of the eventually installed LoRaWAN.

Links

• Hinweise zur Durchführung von studentischen Arbeiten am IBR