By leveraging LoRaWAN, a globally recognized open standard for wireless communication, companies can tap into real-time data from IoT devices to inform business decisions.
With LoRaWAN enabled sensors or devices, businesses can unlock valuable insights, streamline operations, and boost profitability, ultimately driving revenue growth and uncovering new opportunities.
In the realm of Internet of Things (IoT) applications, Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN) emerges as a wireless communication protocol tailored for long-range connectivity. Its unique selling points include extensive coverage, low power consumption, and secure data transmission, making it an ideal fit for various IoT deployments, particularly in smart buildings.
The LoRaWAN architecture is built around a star-of-stars topology, comprising three key elements: end devices, gateways, and network servers. Within smart buildings, end devices such as sensors or actuators collect data or perform specific actions. Gateways serve as intermediaries, facilitating data exchange between end devices and network servers, while network servers oversee communication between gateways and end devices, ensuring seamless and secure data transfer.
Gateways establish standard IP connections with network servers, functioning as transparent bridges. By leveraging the Long Range capabilities of the LoRa physical layer, wireless communication enables direct interaction between end devices and one or multiple gateways. Moreover, bi-directional communication is supported across all modes, and multicast addressing groups are available to optimize spectrum utilization, particularly during tasks like Firmware Over-The-Air (FOTA) upgrades.
To optimize energy efficiency, every communication packet exchanged between end devices and gateways incorporates a variable ‘Data rate’ (DR) setting. The LoRaWAN network server utilizes an Adaptive Data Rate (ADR) scheme to manage the data rate (DR) setting and radio frequency (RF) output power for each individual end device. By dynamically adjusting these parameters, the ADR scheme ensures efficient energy utilization, prolongs battery life, and enhances overall network performance.
By harnessing the power of LoRaWAN technology, smart buildings can optimize energy consumption and enhance occupant experience while maintaining robust security.
This is made possible by the technology’s ability to facilitate seamless collaboration between public and private networks, ensuring a secure exchange of data between devices and the network.
Through the use of AES-128 cryptography, LoRaWAN guarantees the integrity of data, verifies the authenticity of endpoints and data sources, and safeguards against replay attacks.
As a result, users can benefit from end-to-end security, eliminating the need to rely on the network infrastructure. With real-time data insights, smart buildings can make informed decisions to improve energy efficiency and occupant comfort without compromising on security.
LoRa and LoRaWAN are often mistakenly confused as one another, even by service providers themselves. While both in general refer to the same concept and both must be utilized to benefit from the connectivity solution, there is a fundamental difference and they shouldn’t be used interchangeably.
LoRa (Long Range) is the ‘physical’ layer of the communication technology; it is used to establish long-range communication between devices.
LoRa relies on the Chirp Spread Spectrum (CSS) modulation technology, once developed by the military and space industry.
The CSS modulation is the base of the extremely long-range and interference resistance of the communication.
By taking advantage of CSS you can “trade” a data rate for more range or power to optimize the performance based on specific requirements.
LoRaWAN is the network communication protocol that utilizes the LoRa technology layer, allowing to communicate with LoRaWAN gateways.
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