LoRaWAN implementation notes

[j-forster]

This issue is for collecting information about LoRaWAN and implementations from Congduc Pham's Gateway.

Single-Channel LoRaWAN?

Single-channel gateways are low-cost devices that can be used to start exploring the LoRa world. They can receive LoRa packets on a specific spreading factor and channel, and exchange them back and forth with the network. Because they’re financially accessible, many users have started to build their own single-channel gateways to experiment with LoRa.
We do not recommend starting to set up gateways by setting up single-channel gateways. Single-channel gateways are not LoRaWAN-compliant and only offer poor coverage.

https://www.thethingsnetwork.org/docs/gateways/start/single-channel.html

End-devices may transmit on any channel available at any time, using any available data rate, as long as the following rules are respected: The end-device changes channel in a pseudo-random fashion for every transmission. The resulting frequency diversity makes the system more robust to interferences.

https://lora-alliance.org/sites/default/files/2018-07/lorawan1.0.3.pdf

Frames: LoRaWAN / Congduc Pham

LoRa:
[427] PHY = Preamble | PHDR | PHDR_CRC | PHYPayload | CRC

LoRaWAN:
[429] PHYPayload = MHDR | MACPayload | MIC
[444] MHDR = MType | RFU | Major
[433] MACPayload = FHDR | FPort | Payload
[435] FHDR = DevAddr | FCtrl | FCnt | FOpts
(Payload is application specific)

See https://lora-alliance.org/sites/default/files/2018-07/lorawan1.0.3.pdf

Congduc:
PHYPayload = DestAddr | MType | DevAddr | FCnt | Payload
(Payload in Congduc format, like "!/TC/1.2")

[CongducPham]

We already have LoRaWAN support, please have a look at https://github.com/CongducPham/LowCostLoRaGw/blob/master/gw_full_latest/README-aes_lorawan.md

We also support RAK831/2245 concentrator hat which provides multi-channel. Have a look at https://github.com/CongducPham/LowCostLoRaGw/blob/master/gw_full_latest/scripts/rak831_util_pkt_logger/README.md

regards,

[cdupont]

@CongducPham So definitely WaziHat cannot do LoRaWAN, right?

[CongducPham]

It can but only on 1 freq. If you are using DIY lorawan device with LMIC stack for instance, it is ok because you can disable some freq. If you are using commercial lorawan devices, then most of them will cycle through 3 freq so you will lost 2 pkts. Maybe some commercial lorawan devices can be configured to only use 1 freq?