Name
Do’s and Don’ts of DIY LoRaWAN
Description
LoRaWAN wireless networks (Long-Range, Wide Area Network) are a leading solution for internet of things (IoT) communications where low power sensors transmit small data packets to a central gateway. LoRaWAN networks are ideally suited to farm-scale measurements with a single gateway capable of collecting data from hundreds of connected sensors. Emerging sensor technology offers new possibilities for small packet data transfer; from simple weather data to more complex agricultural parameters and geo-localization. Our experience in setting up a LoRaWAN system presented many challenges and we learned it was not as user friendly as we had hoped. While many commercial vendors offer turn-key solutions to support their specific sensor offerings, our research program wanted the flexibility to incorporate wireless data from a range of devices (and from different manufacturers) into one simple dashboard. This poster will outline the issues our research group faced and how these were overcome. By sharing our experiences with gateway power output regulations, channel mask compatibility, device specific keys and the horrors of the Fresnel Zone, hopefully your experience setting up a LoraWAN network will be a little more straight forward and require less troubleshooting.