Trifork Blog

Posts by Ion Iuncu

Collecting data from a private LoRaWAN sensor network into Elastic

May 20th, 2016 by
(https://blog.trifork.com/2016/05/20/collecting-data-from-a-private-lorawan-sensor-network-into-elastic/)

Introduction to LoRaWAN and ELK

Why LoRaWAN, and what makes it different from other types of low power consumption, high range wireless protocols like ZigBee, Z-Wave, etc … ?

LoRa is a wireless modulation for long-range, low-power, low-data-rate applications developed by Semtech. The main features of this technology are the big amount of devices that can connect to one network and the relatively big range that can be covered with one LoRa router. One gateway can coordinate around 20’000 nodes in a range of 10–30km. It’s a very flexible protocol and allows the developers build various types of network architectures according to the demand of the client. The general description of the LoRaWAN protocol together with a small tutorial are available in my previous post.

What is the ELK stack, and why use it with LoRaWAN?

In the figure above, you can see a simplified model of what a typical LoRaWAN network looks like.
As you can see, the data from the LoRa endpoints, has to go through several devices before it reaches the back end application. Nowadays there are a lot of tools that would allow us to gather and manipulate the data. A very good solution is the ELK stack which consists of Elasticsearch, Logstash and Kibana; these three tools allow to gather, store and analyze big amounts of data. More information and details can be found on the official website: https://www.elastic.co/.

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Posted in Elasticsearch, From The Trenches, Internet of Things | 2 Comments »

From The Trenches: LoRa, LoRaWAN tutorial with the LoRaBee

March 4th, 2016 by
(https://blog.trifork.com/2016/03/04/from-the-trenches-lora-lorawan-with-the-lorabee/)

Once in a while you stumble across an interesting technology which is an enabler of new solutions, and new business cases. At Trifork Eindhoven we believe LoRa / LoRaWan might be such a technology. We are currently working on several Internet of Things solutions which could directly benefit from long distance communication, with a low energy footprint.

In this document I will describe the things that I learnt while working with the LoRaBee development kit. I will also provide some basic tutorials on how to set it up, how to start a connection and how to connect it with different platforms.
The hardware that I am using:

  • SODAQ Mbili with Atmel 1284p Microcontroller x 2
  • SODAQ LoRaBee which contains the Microchip RN2483 Module x 2
  • A set of peripherals for data acquisition ( sensors, buttons, LEDs, serial interfaces… )

Quick intro into LoRa

According to Wikipedia:

“LoRaWAN (Long Range Wide Area Network) is a low power wireless networking protocol designed for low-cost secure two-way communication in the Internet of Things (IoT). LoRaWANs use of sub-GHz ISM bands also means the network can penetrate the core of large structures and subsurface deployments within a range of 2 km.[1]

The technology utilized in a LoRaWAN network is designed to connect low-cost, battery-operated sensors over long distances in harsh environments that were previously too challenging or cost prohibitive to connect. With its penetration capability, a LoRa gateway deployed on a building or tower can connect to sensors more than 10 miles away or to water meters deployed underground or in basements. The LoRaWAN protocol offers unique and unequaled benefits in terms of bi-directionality, security, mobility and accurate localization that are not addressed by other LPWAN technologies. These benefits will enable the diverse use cases and business models in deployments of LPWAN IoT networks globally.”

In the following picture, you can see the typical LoRaWAN network:

As you can see, all three classes are required for a fully working LoRaWAN network. In the tutorial, we used two LoRa end node devices for a P2P communication; however that is a simple radio transmit/receive between the LoRa modules and not the LoRaWAN protocol.

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Posted in Custom Development, From The Trenches, Internet of Things | 3 Comments »