LoRaWAN Overview

By Kris Thompson

Doc Set: LoRaWAN Overview

LoRaWAN Overview

This page provides an overview of the primary LoRaWAN components.

  • device - collects and reports measurements from the physical world
  • gateway - provides coverage for devices, forwarding uplinks and downlinks between device and network server
  • network server - provides device provisioning, data de-duplication, and applicaiton integration
  • application server - decrypts, decodes, and stores the data, provides dashboards, reports, alerts, and some device controls

What is LoRaWAN?

LoRaWAN is a Low-Power, Wide-Area Networking (LPWAN) technology to provide wireless bi-directional and secure connectivity to (typically) battery powered devices. LoRaWAN gateway “coverage” can provide connectivity to devices within several kilometers.

LoRaWAN is:

Building Blocks

More intro to the four (4) LoRaWAN building blocks; device, gateway, network server, application server.

LoRaWAN Building Blocks

Devices

LoRaWAN End Devices (aka devices), typically run off of battery and are designed to minimize power consumpting. These “devices” are enabled with various sensors for reporting and controlling things from the physical world.

LoRa technology and the LoRaWAN protocol enables devices to work at long distances and on low power.

Gateways

Shared RF Spectrum

As LoRaWAN communications uses a shared medium (RF Spectrum), channel capacity may be shared by many devices. Large service deployments can result in channel capacity issues. High density wireless requires lowering transmit levels to allow for more gateways creating smaller “cells” (coverage areas).

Network Server

The LoRaWAN Network Server (LNS) is used to route and de-duplicate traffic. The LNS provides addressing and join (auto-configure), Adaptive Data Rate (ADR), Downlink routing and other services. The LNS is at the heart of the LoRaWAN system.

Application Server

The Application Server has a lot of functions, starting with Decrypting the payload using the Application Session Key. After the Application server decrypts the payload, it will also need to route the payload for decoding and downstread storage and consumption (or is this upstream).