Nodes and Gateways

Once the LoRaWAN technology has been presented, in this post we will discuss the physical equipment that makes up the network, that is, the nodes and gateways.

These devices, after all, are the ones that are capable of operating on a LoRaWAN network to exploit the advantages of this technology. That is why the type of device that is manufactured to communicate via LoRaWAN are those that transmit little data per message in order not to saturate the network and optimize consumption – for non-powered devices -.

Explained with examples, in LoRaWAN networks, we will find sensors of physical variables (temperature, humidity, air quality, counters, …) but not cameras that transmit video in real time. In the first case, the nodes would transmit little data per message intermittently, while for cameras a large continuous bandwidth is needed.

I Nodes

Nodes are all those final physical devices that are the origin or destination of the transmissions of a LoRaWAN network or, in other words, those devices that receive or send data collected in the field.

The first thing to know about nodes is that their behavior varies depending on whether they are powered or not. In a LoRaWAN network there are three types of devices:

The summary of these classes is that equipment A and B are those that are powered by batteries, their normal state is hibernating and they wake up before an event to send a frame.

The big difference between A and B is about downlink messages (from the Gateway to the node). While the former only stay listening for a moment after sending a message to optimize their consumption, in class B they wake up periodically for a moment to see if there is ‘something’ for them.

Finally, we have class C. Class C are all those devices that are powered and that are continuously attentive to see if there is a downlink message that concerns them.

All the nodes that a user uses, you can see in its datasheet or on the manufacturer’s website what type they are.

That would be the way to classify according to their energy consumption, however, if we classify according to their functionality, we can separate the types of nodes in sensors and instrumentation and trackers.

Sensors and Instrumentation

Without a doubt, if there is a type of device that LoRaWAN is allowing to deploy in large numbers, it is sensors and instrumentation. A long-range network, with practically no need for maintenance, to transmit little data and that allows equipment to consume little energy is ideal for sensors and instrumentation. That is why the first LoRaWAN nodes that were manufactured were temperature and humidity sensors and, little by little, the range has been expanded to increase the performance of the equipment. What is more, we already find powered equipment to acquire analog signals or even activate outputs.

Trackers

In addition to the capture of physical signals or the activation of electrical signals, there is another very interesting type of node, the trackers. These are equipment capable of geopositioning using a LoRaWAN network. There are several types and models, but in general, there are those equipment that are positioned triangulating the LoRaWAN signal (which has a fairly low precision), triangulating the position in a Wifi or Bluetooth network (with greater precision) or, finally, its position via GPS. The interesting thing about all this is that, whatever the position, the value of its coordinates is sent via LoRaWAN. To give an example, a GPS tracker would receive its coordinates and, via the LoRaWAN network, would send the degrees of latitude and longitude as values. Obviously, trackers are also nodes of type A, B or C.

It is very important to highlight from the nodes that, together with the equipment, the provider must give us a set of alphanumeric codes.

These codes must be entered in the Gateway or in the Network Server in order to register them in the network. Without them, we will ‘only’ have some useless equipment.

I Gateway

In this same blog we have a specific entry to talk about the functionalities. The important thing to highlight is what is the element that forms the network, captures the messages sent by the nodes and sends to these that information that comes from the upper applications.

As we mentioned in that entry, it is important to be clear if our LoRaWAN network is going to be a network managed from the gateways – that is, where these in turn perform the function of Network Server – or a network where the coordination of the gateways is done from a single external Network Server. If it is the first case, it will be in the gateway itself, typically through its webserver, where we will enter the codes that we mentioned from the nodes to be able to register the equipment of the network.

To finish this introduction to the technology and its components, in the next entry of the series we will talk about the Network Servers, their functionalities and their potential.

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