Starting from September 2016, Saint-Joseph University of Beirut (USJ) will be deploying the first academic LoRa network in Lebanon. The network will support monitoring of micro-climate conditions in vineyards. Here below you can find a detailed description of the experimental platform implementing an end-to-end LoRaWAN solution.

Figure 2. Architecture of the LoRaWAN Platform

The single channel gateway includes a LoRa transmission module (Dragino Shield) connected to a Raspberry Pi (2 or 3) as shown in Figure 1. Communication between the two modules is done over an SPI interface.

Figure 2. LoRa single channel gateway

In order to assemble the gateway, start by making the wire connections: the connection pins are identified in Figures 2 and 3.

Figure 2. Dragino pin mapping

Figure 3. Raspberry pi 3 pins

Connect the Raspberry Pi to the Internet and install the packet forwarding software. The source code of the single channel packet forwarder is available on: https://github.com/samerlahoud/single_chan_pkt_fwd. In order to install it, you need to:

• Enable SPI on the Raspberry Pi using raspi-config
• Download and unzip the source code:

wget https://github.com/hallard/single_chan_pkt_fwd/archive/master.zip
unzip master.zip

• Install the wiring library:

apt-get update
apt-get install wiring

Now you can compile and run the packet forwarder as root.

make all
nohup ./single_chan_pkt_fwd &

{
  “SX127x_conf”:
  {
    “freq”: 868100000,
    “spread_factor”: 7,
    “pin_nss”: 6,
    “pin_dio0”: 7,
    “pin_rst”: 0,
    “pin_led1”:4
  },
  “gateway_conf”:
  {
    “ref_latitude”: 33.86576536772,
    “ref_longitude”: 35.56378662935,
    “ref_altitude”: 165,

    “name”: “ESIB SC Gateway”,
    “email”: “cimti@usj.edu.lb”,
    “desc”: “Dragino Single Channel Gateway on RPI”,

    “servers”:
    [
      {
        “address”: “router.eu.thethings.network”,
        “port”: 1700,
        “enabled”: true
      },
      {
        “address”: “212.98.137.194”,
        “port”: 1700,
        “enabled”: true
      },
      {
        “address”: “172.17.17.129”,
        “port”: 1700,
        “enabled”: false
      }
    ]
  }
}

gcc version 4.6.3
unrecognized command line option '-std=c++11'
CFLAGS = -std=c++0x -c -Wall -I include/

# activates eth0 at startup
ETHERNET=yes
# claims dhcp request on eth0
ETHDHCP=yes

# Selector operator APN
GPRSAPN=gprs.touch.com.lb
# Enter pin code if activated
GPRSPIN=0000
# Update /etc/resolv.conf to get dns facilities
GPRSDNS=yes
# PAP authentication
GPRSUSER=
GPRSPASSWORD=

# Bearers priority order
#BEARERS_PRIORITY="eth0,ppp0,eth1"
BEARERS_PRIORITY="ppp0,eth0,eth1"

./gps-pkt-fwd.sh > /dev/null &

 3270 root      2548 S    /bin/sh ./gps-pkt-fwd.sh
 3288 root     34908 S    ./gps_pkt_fwd

/etc/init.d/gprs start

[root@Wirgrid_0b03008c demo_gps_loramote]# /etc/init.d/gprs  status
pppd (pid 5273) is running...
Session: Rx=58, Tx=163
Globals: Rx=1130457, Tx=1195592
Sum:     Rx=1130515, Tx=1195755
[root@Wirgrid_0b03008c demo_gps_loramote]#