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Deploying an End-to-End LoRaWAN Platform
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.
-. Devices
-. Autonomo with LoRaBee
For the devices in the LoRaWAN platform, we will use an Autonomo board with a LoRaBee holding the Microchip RN2483 module. According to http://shop.sodaq.com, Autonomo is a matchbox-sized powerhouse which uses the new Atmel Cortex M0+ 32bit micro controller. One advantage of such device is that it can be powered by a smartphone-sized solar panel.
In order to configure the Autonomo with LoRaBee device, you should follow these steps:
- Verify that you have the latest Arduino IDE from https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/Software on your computer.
- Install the board files as noted in http://support.sodaq.com/sodaq-one/autonomо/getting-started-autonomo/.
- Add the following library sodaq_rn2483_2.zip to your Arduino IDE as explained in https://www.arduino.cc/en/guide/libraries.
Now you are ready to write a sketch for the device. Here is one example sketch test-lorawan-combined-loraserver-example.zip where the autonomo is connected to three sensors: light, moisture, and temperature. Let us analyse some extracts of the code:
// USE YOUR OWN KEYS! const uint8_t devEUI[8] = { }; // USE YOUR OWN KEYS! const uint8_t appEUI[8] = { }; const uint8_t appKey[16] = { };
a light sensor on pin A0, A2 (moisture sensor), and D0 (temperature sensor).
- OTA join method
- Frequency channels
- Message sending
-. Arduino with Dragino Shield
-. Gateways
-. Single Channel Gateway
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.
In order to assemble the gateway, start by making the wire connections: the connection pins are identified in Figures 2 and 3.
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
Compile the packet forwarder:
make all
For gcc version 4.6.3, a compilation error results in the following warning unrecognized command line option '-std=c++11
'. Replace -std=c++11
by -std=c++0x
in the Makefile and recompile:
CFLAGS = -std=c++0x -c -Wall -I include/
Now, you need to configure the single channel packet forwarder. This is done in the global_conf.json
configuration file. Particularly, you need to choose the channel, the spreading factor, the pins for SPI communication, and the address of the backend server. Note that you can specify multiple backends for testing purposes.
- global_config.json
{ "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 } ] } }
Finally, you can run the packet forwarder as root!
nohup ./single_chan_pkt_fwd &
-. Kerlink IoT Station
# 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]#