What Are The Advantages Of Lorawan?
On September 20, Semtech, the company behind Lora and Lorawan, said it would establish a network-based in Lorawan, New Zealand, and promised population coverage in a few months. Lorawan and Lora are supported by the Lora Alliance, a non-profit organization and one of the fastest-growing technology alliances with over 500 member companies committed to enabling the widespread use of Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWANs) for IoT platform development and promoting Lorawan as an open standard. Against this background, you can learn more about the use of the Internet of Things in relation to farm animals and their use cases.
The mission of LORA Alliance is to standardize low-power wide-area networks (LPWANs) used worldwide to enable the Internet of Things (IoT) and machine-to-machine (M2M) in smart cities and industrial applications. The mission statement continues: “The Alliance is working together to advance the global success of the Lora Protocol and Lorawan by sharing knowledge and experience and ensuring interoperability between operators using an open, global standard. There are a number of distinguishing features between Lora (r) devices and Lorawan protocol that contribute to widespread adoption, including long-distance connectivity, battery life, security, network architecture and network capacity.
This is a special feature that will drive the adoption of the Lorawan (r) Protocol in the coming years. Lorawan is a protocol that relies on Lora modulation to manage network connections. In other words, Lora modulation can be considered a PHY layer and Lorawan a link layer.
LORA modulation, which manages network connectivity, sensors, and radio bridges, runs on the Lorawan protocol, which is compatible with the industry-standard Lorawan gateway. Using star topography, sensors communicate with gateways in the Lora network. Lora gateways act as transparent bridges that relay messages from devices to the central backend of the network server (ideal for a nationwide public deployment), gateways can connect to network servers via standard IP connections and can be controlled for private rollouts where security controls are essential.
It connects devices to the Internet and manages communication between terminal devices and network gateways. Lorawan is used in unlicensed ISM, industrial, scientific and medical radio band networks. Lorawan is increasingly used in industrial areas and smart cities because it is an affordable, long-range, low-power, bi-directional communications protocol that can run on small batteries for up to 10 years.
A Lorawan Gateway Box connects a wireless Lorawan terminal device to the Internet like a sensor via a local network. Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN), Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWA) or Low Power Network (LPN) is a type of wide-area wireless telephone network designed to communicate with things such as connected objects such as sensors powered by batteries at low bit rates over long distances. Lorawan is another type of LPWAN that reduces network interference and maintains low battery demand.
LPWAN uses the narrowband modulation of the signal to reduce the data rate to a minimum. Low-power wide-area networks (LPWA) offer a multi-year battery life and are designed for sensor applications that need to send small data at long distances several times per hour in different environments. LORA and Lorawan belong to the category of non-cellular LPWAN network protocol players operating on royalty-free frequencies.
This unique advantage is not available in other RF connectivity solutions. The combination of direct cloud connectivity, low operational and manufacturing costs, extremely low power consumption and the resulting longer battery life make the LPWAN protocol an ideal solution for IoT applications. It will become a necessary part of the IoT ecosystem and will contribute to the deployment and growth of the IoT. To learn more about Abracon’s connectivity to LPWA, click here.
Of the billions of sensor-enabled IoT platforms and devices that will be connected in the next few years, it is estimated that more than half will be powered by low-power wide area networks (LPWANs). LPWAN protocol is a cost-effective solution to scale the growth of IoT and a key driver of IoT applications by reducing the power consumption of ICS and other subsystems. Public and private networks are designed to be integrated into machines to extend battery life and range and provide sufficient connectivity for the vast majority of connected devices and use cases.
New and emerging wireless standards such as LORA (short-to-long-range) are critical to the Internet of Things industry, as they are designed for simple sensor devices that require long range and long battery life. The unique requirements of IoT platform and applications require the capabilities that these communication standards bring with them. In development only for a few years, many are managed by amateur networks that are used in large geographical areas.
One technology that is receiving a lot of attention in this area is Lora. Lora has managed to become popular as part of the successful crowdfunding All Things Network initiative, and mobile operators are looking for a slice of the pie. New and emerging wireless standards such as Lora (short for long range) are of paramount importance in countless industrial applications from healthcare to agriculture to retail and have proved durable for businesses around the world.
Semtech and others sell semiconductor solutions such as Lora transceivers and gateways in addition to many other solutions such as ICs and more. Another option is the low cost of indoor gateways that have the same functionality as outdoor gateways but are not available in most other proprietary LPWAN wireless network solutions. Indoor gateways are advantageous for some applications but the main attraction of Lorawan is the choice of options for gateway types and deployment models.
The selection and options for gateway types and deployment models allow solution providers to tailor the solution to the needs of the application environment and the use case. Examples of this type of use include intelligent construction applications that require guaranteed coverage for SLAs in basements, multi-story car parks and walk-in freezers. Lora is also designed to work with IoT platforms and devices that require superior battery life.
