Introduction to Lora Gateways

Gateways in a Lora network act as a transparent bridge that relays messages between terminal devices and central network servers in the back end (ideal for public or country-wide deployments). Gateways connect to network servers via standard IP connections and are controlled by private rollouts where security controls are necessary.

The Lora gateways software, which includes the packet forwarding software running on the gateway, interoperates with the Lora chip to receive and transmit radio frequency packets from Lorawan Network Servers (LNs) and to send messages received by the chip to applications and cloud devices via uplinks and downlinks. Lorawan requires a gateway, such as one that combines packets from many Lora nodes and forwards them over the network via TCP / IP. Lora Gateway is the main power supply and consists of a Lora radio frontend that controls the host platform via a serial interface.

LORA itself represents the physical level of the network, and the technology behind it is the powerful wireless modulation used to establish remote communication between devices. This is RF modulation used in Lorawan (r) and Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) technology which uses licensed and free radio frequencies designed for long-range and high-performance applications. Sigfox limits its network device capacities in the network so that the actual data rate of LORA depends on the distance between the terminal and the gateway.

Lorawan is an IoT network consisting of terminals and gateways. You can build a private Lorawan network with gateways and terminals by using the direct transmission of Lorawan and LORA P2P communications to take advantage of an extensive network when you combine it with the corresponding Lorawan servers. In a public Lorawan network, you can connect all of your devices or set up a private network, where you have your gateway and a Lorawan server.

There are countless steps involved in building a Lora network gateway from scratch, from registering with the Things network to observing data from a simple Lora node, but it is a crucial step in integrating IoT technologies into embedded devices and applications that drive our world. In this blog post, you will learn how to use Things Network (TTN) v2 and Things Stack v3 Lorawan gateways that are running on the new Semtech Packet Forwarding Protocol (Lora Basics (TM) Station). Lora and Lorawan are the technology to build a network and to start building long-range IoT devices for a low investment.

LORA-Gateway is a radio module that serves as a communication device between LORA network terminal devices and Lorawan Network Servers (LNs). The gateway connects the Lora network servers to high-bandwidth networks such as WiFi, Ethernet and cellular networks to assure a seamless connection between Lora end nodes and application servers. The gateway receives LORA’s modulated RF messages from the terminal devices that can be heard remotely, and the messages are then connected to the IP backbone.

LORA is a cloud-based Media Access Control (MAC) layer protocol that serves as a network layer protocol for the management of communication between LPWAN gateways, end nodes and devices routing protocols maintained by the LORA Alliance. It enables terminal devices (sensors and actuators) to connect to its network of radio gateways using Lora RF modulation. Lora modulation manages network connectivity between sensors and radio bridges running on the Lora protocol and is compatible with industry-standard Lora gateways.

Based on the RSSI level of the identical message, the network server selects the gateway that received the message with the best RSSI and sends the downlink to the gateway, as it is the closest to the device in question.