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INTERNET OF THINGS
Semtech’s LoRa Edge Speeds IoT Applications

By Maurizio Di Paolo Emilio

he development of the IoT brings with it design challenges
that many companies are trying to solve by providing design-
ers with relevant tools. Over the next decade, more than 500
T billion devices will be connected to the internet, and a robust
corporate strategy will be needed to provide devices with location
capability and proper energy management.
IoT will affect all aspects of life, covering applications from wearable
connected devices to asset management, monitoring, and sensors that
communicate with one or more gateways over distances of up to several
kilometers. These devices are usually intended for service of up to
eight years, so it necessary to choose a network connectivity approach
that will be supported during this period. Typical IoT applications
require data transmission in certain situations only, depending on the
parameters to be measured, and do not require high bit rates. These
characteristics are met by low-power wide-area network (LPWAN) tech- Figure 3: LR1110’s block diagram (Image: Semtech)
nologies, which demand low transmission power and provide excellent
coverage and scalability. cloud solutions with geolocation provides the right balance between
Semtech’s LoRa Edge platform enables sensor management in a location accuracy and low power consumption, optimizing system cost
wide range of applications. Shown at embedded world, the platform and complexity. By eliminating the need for incremental GNSS and
integrates an ultra-low-power LoRa (long range) transceiver, GNSS, and Wi-Fi components, LoRa Edge reduces BOM costs.
Wi-Fi scanning technologies. The combination of LoRa technology and LoRa has significant technical credentials and is already in use in
applications that require reliable communications capability over dis-
tances of several kilometers, such as wireless instrument reading and
street lighting control systems. This sub-gigahertz technology supports
data rates from 0.3 Kbps to 50 Kbps, depending on distance and mes-
sage duration. Transmission distance can be up to 15 to 20 km. Even in
a high-density urban environment, communication distances of more
than 2 km are achievable.
“LoRa is long-range, [so] you don’t need a lot of base station repeat-
ers,” said Olivier Beaujard, senior director, LoRa Ecosystem at Semtech.
“People can have [a] public [or] private network solution based on
LoRa, which is already in use for tracking applications. But most
importantly, LoRa is extremely low-power. And what does [that] mean?
People can do [a] very small tracker” with a small battery.
LoRa’s low-power capabilities were “proven with a lot of use cases
Figure 1: LoRa Edge geolocation solution (Image: Semtech) in utility, water, and gas,” he added. “In asset management, it makes a
difference in many situations.”
The LoRa technology stack comprises two layers: the physical layer,
using a proprietary modulation derived from chirp spread spectrum,
and the protocol for the media access control sublayer called LoRaWAN.
A LoRa network includes gateways to connect to the central network
server. Endpoints communicate with a star network topology via a
single-hop wireless link to gateways with the ability to connect to mul-
tiple gateways to ensure connection redundancy (Figures 1 and 2).
Semtech’s LR1110, the first LoRa Edge chipset targeted with geolo-
cation, captures a portion of a satellite broadcast signal. The signals are
aggregated to NAV message and sent to the cloud server. GNSS scanner
supports GPS L1 + GPS geostationary, SBAS: EGNOS + WAAS, and
BeiDou B1 + BeiDou geostationary GEO/IGSO (Figure 3).
LoRa Edge is an all-in-one chipset for indoor/outdoor applications. It
allows customers to further manage the total cost of ownership, paying
only when an asset needs to be identified. Improved key provisioning at
the point of production and a secure join process simplify IoT solution
development. LoRa Edge and LoRa Cloud geolocation services offer
unique system architecture to reduce power consumption. ■

Maurizio Di Paolo Emilio is a staff correspondent at AspenCore,
Figure 2: GNSS scanning principle, assist mode (Image: Semtech) editor of Power Electronics News, and editor-in-chief of EEWeb.

www.eetimes.eu | APRIL 2020