LoRa/LoRaWAN tutorial 28: LoRaWAN Gateway

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This is part 28 of the LoRa/LoRaWAN tutorial.

In this video series different topics will be explained which will help you to understand LoRa/LoRaWAN.
It is recommended to watch each video sequentially as I may refer to certain LoRa/LoRaWAN topics explained earlier.

In this tutorial I will explain what the RAK831 Pilot Gateway is, how to configure it and how you can register this gateway with The Things Network.

Rakwireless Technology (RAK) was established in June 2014 and is based in Shenzhen, China.
RAK main focus is developing and supplying advanced IoT technology and services.

There are many different gateways, one of them is the RAK831 Pilot Gateway.
This gateway is designed for indoor usage and supports the LoRaWAN 1.0.2 protocol.
It is ideal for prototyping, Proof-of-Concept demonstration or for evaluation purposes.
The RAK831 Pilot Gateway is a fully assembled gateway with an aluminium housing and is shipped with a micro SD card with all software pre-installed.

The RAK831 Pilot Gateway consists of:
- a Raspberry Pi 3 model B+ (rev1.3),
- a converter board with a GPS (Ublox, MAX-7Q) module,
- a RAK831 LoRa Concentrator,
- an aluminium housing with the top cover serving as a heat sink housing size DxWxH = 69x92x54 mm,
- a power adapter (5V, 2A) with micro USB, and the cable length is 115 cm,
- an antenna with the correct frequency for the LoRa radio,
- a GPS antenna and the cable length is 150 cm,
- a micro SD card (16 GB, class 10) with pre-installed software.

The RAK831 concentrator uses the Semtech SX1301 chip and is able to receive up to 8 LoRa packets simultaneously, and can send with different spreading factors on different channels.
The concentrator is the radio communication module which receives and transmits radio messages.
The converter board with the GPS module routes the signals between the Raspberry Pi and the RAK831 concentrator.
The Raspberry Pi processes these radio messages as well as protocol related tasks and sends the processed data to a LoRaWAN server, for example The Things Network server.

The RAK831 Pilot Gateway is a fully assembled gateway and needs to be configured before it can be used.
To register your gateway with The Things Network you need its gateway EUI.
The gateway EUI can be any random 8 bytes number but it is recommended that the gateway EUI is based on the gateway MAC address.
A MAC address is a hardcoded identification number which is assigned to your network interface card.
WiFi is by default disabled in the RAK831 Pilot Gateway.

The gateway is shipped with a micro SD card with the following software pre-installed.
Raspbian Stretch Lite:
https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads...
Semtech LoRa library (V5.0.1):
https://github.com/Lora-net/lora_gateway
Semtech UDP Packet Forwarder (V4.0.1):
https://github.com/Lora-net/packet_fo...

The Semtech LoRa library contains drivers/HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) to be used in gateways using a concentrator board based on Semtech SX1301 multi-channel modem and SX1257/SX1255 RF transceivers.
The Semtech UDP Packet Forwarder is a program running on the host of a LoRa gateway (in my case the Raspberry Pi) that forwards RF packets received by the concentrator to a LoRaWAN server through an IP/UDP link.

The RAK831 Pilot Gateway is shipped with a converter board with an Ublox MAX-7Q GPS (Global Positioning System) module and a GPS antenna.
GPS satellites broadcasts navigational messages to Earth, which contains very accurate time stamps and their position.

The gateway GPS module receives these navigational messages.
With this information the GPS module calculates its position on Earth.
The GPS module can use these accurate time stamps to create a PPS (Pulse Per Second) signal that is used for timing/synchronisation purposes.
Every LoRaWAN gateway with a GPS module generates the same synchronised PPS signal.

The RAK831 Pilot Gateway has a GPS module but it is disabled.
This is done because class B functionality is not implemented yet in LoRaWAN servers, such as The Things Network servers.

More information about the RAK831 Pilot Gateway:
https://www.aliexpress.com/store/prod...

Interested in the RAK831 components:
https://www.aliexpress.com/store/prod...

Check out all my other LoRa/LoRaWAN tutorial videos:
   • LoRa/LoRaWAN tutorials  

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   / @mobilefish  

The presentation used in this video tutorial can be found at:
https://www.mobilefish.com/developer/...

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