What is LoRa Technology? | How LoRa Works | Libelium LoRaWAN Gateway

What is LoRa?

Technology is a useful servant but a dangerous master
–Christian Lous Lange

• LoRa is a Low Power Wide Area Network also called LPWAN.

• It consists of three parts

• • Low power

• • Wide area

• • Network

• The main difference between normal device and IoT device is it’s capability to connecting to the internet.

• Network:

• • The IoT network has to be based on some standard, in order to connect different devices from different manufacturers.

• Wide Area:

• • ESP82Loraora gateway can connect to Wi-Fi which is part of LAN(Local Area Network.

• • LAN is very limited distance coverage(few meters), but we want much bigger distance (kilometers)coverage like wide area network.

• • we can reach wide distance using AM(Amplitude Modulation), which covers a large area but transmitters need more power.

• Low power:
  • The battery-powered IoT device could not deliver much power for transmission.

How LoRa Works

• LoRaWAN typically constructed in star topology, it differs from other IoT network.
• In this star topology all the nodes in the network directly connected to the central node.

• The central node acts as a gateway and serves as the transparent bridge relaying messages between end-devices and a central network server in the backend.

• Gateways are connected to the network server via standard IP connections while end-devices use single-hop wireless communication to one or many gateways.

• All end-point communication is bi-directional, and supports multicast, enabling software upgrades over the air.

• According to the LoRa alliance, this developed LoRa model will improve the power efficiency of the device and build a secure communication around IoT network.

Applications of LoRa

• This wireless RF technology is being integrated into

• • Cars

• • Street lights

• • Smoke alarm detection

• • Trash container monitor

• • Manufacturing equipment

• • Home appliances

• • Pet tracking

• • Gas monitoring

• • Water heater remote monitoring

• • Wearable health devices monitoring
• LoRa Technology is making our world a Smart Planet.

LoRa-Security features

• • IoT is a critical infrastructure network, providing secure, as well as energy efficient data transmission, is possible when implementing LoRa kind of technologies. LoRa achieves this with two layers of security:

• • One for the network

• • One for the application

• LoRa uses AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) security keys to solved these security issues by several layers of encryption:

• • Unique Network key (EUI64) and ensure security on the network level

• • Unique Application key (EUI64) ensure the end to end security on application level

• • Device specific key (EUI128)

LoRa Technology