| dc.description.abstract | LoRaWAN is an open-source protocol tailored for IoT applications, employing LoRa radio modulation in unlicensed frequency bands to achieve extensive range with minimal power consumption. Despite LoRa’s remarkable penetration capabilities, there are scenarios where signal transmission between two transceivers becomes too unreliable, such as sensors situated deep indoors, in shadowed urban areas, or underground. To address such challenges, the LoRa Alliance recently introduced a new relay feature. The relay, as a hardware component like any LoRaWAN end node, acts as an intermediary message forwarder between LoRaWAN devices and a gateway.
The objective of this thesis was to investigate the application of the LoRaWAN relay feature in expanding LoRaWAN networks, leveraging the Altibox LoRaWAN infrastructure. Through a comprehensive review of the LoRaWAN protocol and an in-depth study of the LoRaWAN Relay Specification, a solid foundation was laid for conducting this evaluation. This involved utilizing a relay evaluation kit to test and assess the functionality of the relay feature.
As the results demonstrate, the relay significantly enhanced the radio coverage. However, findings regarding stability and occasional dropouts warrant additional investigation.
The final part of this thesis involves the development of a relay enabled end node, using a Nucleo development board combined with a LoRa radio shield and an analogue moisture sensor. The program was initiated using an example application sourced from Semtech’s LBM software library. | |
