CHAPTER 6:

Low Power Wide Area Networks

NonCellular Based IoT Networks (LoRa)
 LPWAN REQUIREMENTS

Long
Battery Life
Support for
a Massive Low Device
Number of
Cost
Devices

LPWAN

Extended
Coverage Low Cost and
(10-15 km in rural areas; Deployment
2-5km in urban areas)

IFA’2021 2
 LPWAN CHARACTERISTICS

Star Topology Thousands of Nodes Highly Asymmetric (up/down)

per Gateway links or unidirectional links only

Sleepy nodes (Duty Cycles)

Small Message Sizes
Very small frame payload High Packet Loss
(8-250 bytes) (<50 Bytes) (caused by collisions or bad
LPWAN transmission conditions)

Unlicensed and
Licensed Bands Low bandwidth offering
throughput between 50 bps
to 250kbps
Duty Cycle limits the MTU variable
transmission (Changing with Modulation) Scalability, High Reliability,
In unlicensed bands Security, Interoperability
Duty Cycle: 1% (up), 10% (down)
IFA’2021 3
 IoT Connectivity Competitive Landscape:
for Long-range Communication

– Targets low-end IoT applications

– Coverage range (up to tens of kms)
– Long battery life (up to 10 years)
– Low data rates
– Significant share of the IoT market
 Estimated 3 billion subscriptions by 2023

– Several proprietary solutions

 SIGFOX: • Weightless
 LoRa • ZWave
IFA’2021 4
 COMPARISON OF STANDARDS IN TERMS OF RANGE

IFA’2021
5
 LoRa for Wide Area Networks for IoT
 Origin:
– First proposed by CYCLOS and acquired by SemTech (France)
– Now being developed by the LoRa Alliance
 https://www.lora-alliance.org
 Cisco, IBM, SemTech, …
 Released in July 2015.

 Secret Sauce:
– Wideband CIRP-like (Compressed chirp spread spectrum (CSS)) PHY layer with adaptive rate
– Simple but effective LoRA WAN MAC protocol

 Capacity & Coverage

– From order of 102 to 104 bps over up to 1-3 km in EU

 LoRa = Physical Layer (CIRP-like) owned by SemTech. (+link layer)

 LoRaWAN = MAC + Network Layers (Wide Area Network Architecture)

 AMAZON: Connectivity Kit for ARDUINO, WASPMOTE, RASPBERRY Pi

IFA’2021 6
 LoRa Alliance
International
Operators

Integrators
and
Industrialists

Manufacturers
and End-points

Manufacturers
of
Semiconductors

IFA’2021 7
 LoRa Network Features
Long Range Max Lifetime MultiUsage Low Cost
* Greater than Cellular * Low power optimized * High Capacity * Minimal Infrastructure
* Deep indoor coverage * 1—20 year lifetime * MultiTenant * Low Cost End Node
* Star Topology * >10x vs cellular M2M * Public Network * Open Software

IFA’2021 8
 What do we need to deploy a LoRa Network ?

End Points LoRa Infrastructure LoRa BackOffice and Business

* Base Station LNS Platform Apps Sales
* Site Acquisation * APIs
* Site Construction
and
* Storage
* Radio Planning * Channel Management
Administrative
* Site Operation and * Invoicing
Maintenance

IFA’2021 9
 LoRaWAN
 Low Power Wide Area Network
 Modulation  a Version of Chirp Spread
Spectrum (CSS) with channel BW of
125kHz.
 High sensitivity (End Nodes): up to -137
dBm, Gateways up to -142dBm)
 Long range communication (up to 15km)
IFA’2021
 Strong indoor penetration: With
high spreading factor up to 20dB
penetration (deep indoor)
 Occupies the entire BW of the
channel; to broadcast a signal
making it robust to channel noise
 Resistant to Doppler effect,
multipath and signal weakening.
10
 ARCHITECTURE
Server
*Relays Optional!

Gateway

*Relay *Relay

Device Device Device Device Device Device Device Device

IFA’2021 11
 LoRa Architecture

IFA’2021 12
 LoRaWAN

 A PHY & MAC protocol for long-range WANs

– Designed to allow low-powered devices to communicate with Internet-
connected applications over long range wireless connections

 Can be mapped to the 1st and 2nd of the protocol stack:

– Implemented on top of LoRa (or FSK) modulation ISM bands.

 Protocols are defined by the LoRa Alliance and formalized in

the LoRaWAN Specification
IFA’2021 13
 PHYSICAL MEDIUM: FREQUENCY BANDS

Unlicensed Spectrum:
– USA: 902-928 MHz
– EU: 863-870 MHz
– Australia: 915-928 MHz
– China: 779-787 MHz
– Asia: 433 MHz

IFA’2021 14
 CHANNELIZATION (USA)
 Upstream:
– 64 channels (0-63) utilizing LoRa 125 kHz BW varying from data rate DR0 to DR3, using coding
rate 4/5, starting at 902.3 MHz and incrementing linearly by 200 kHz to 914.9 MHz
– 8 channels (64-71) utilizing LoRa 500 kHz BW at DR4 starting at 903.0 MHz and incrementing
linearly by 1.6 MHz to 914.2 MHz (non-orthogonal; overlapping; interferences possible)
– Very short packets
 Downstream:
– 8 channels (0-7) utilizing LoRa 500 kHz BW at DR8 to DR13 starting at 923.3 MHz and
incrementing linearly by 600 kHz to 927.5 MHz

64 + 8 Uplink Channels 8x Downlink Channels

902.3 903.0 904.6 914.2 923.3 923.9 927.5

IFA’2021 15
 POWER AND TIME LIMITS (USA)

Default radiated power: 20 dBm

– Devices, when transmitting with 125 kHz BW, may use a maximum of +30 dBm
– Devices, when transmitting with 500 kHz BW, may use a maximum of +26 dBm

Transmissions (both ways) shall never last more than 400 ms

IFA’2021 16
 LoRa PHY
 Proprietary modulation scheme derivative of Chirp Spread Spectrum (CSS)
– Linear frequency modulated pulses whose frequency increases or
decreases over a certain amount of time to encode information
 Main advantages:
– Processing gain due to spread spectrum technique
– High tolerance to frequency misalignment
– Support of variable FEC codes and Spreading Factors
possibility to trade throughput for coverage range/robustness/energy
consumption while keeping constant bandwidth

IFA’2021 17
 Physical Layer: LoRa (USA)
 LoRa uses a chirp spread spectrum (CSS) modulation scheme
 CSS uses wideband linear frequency modulated chirp pulses to encode information
 A chirp is a compressed high intensity radar pulse
 A chirp often called a SWEEP SIGNAL, is tone (sinusoids signal) in which the frequency
increases (up chirp) or decreases (down chirp) with time

Here in the beginning we start low frequency

(long period) as the time increases the
frequency goes higher (shorter periods for the
signals).

Used by whales and dolphins;

Patented for radar applications in 1944
IFA’2021 18
 UP CHIRP AND DOWN CHIRP (UNMODULATED SIGNALS)

Up-Chirp
fhigh
Starts with the lowest
freq and reaches the fcenter
max freq and
starts again with the flow
lowest freq.
Time
Down-Chirp
fhigh

fcenter

flow
IFA’2021 Time 19
 REMARK

 CSS (Chirp Spread Spectrum) modulation technique helps to transmit

signals for very large distances.

 “Bandwidth Time (Delay) Product”

Product of data a link capacity (bps) and its round trip delay time (secs)
is always greater than one (B*T > 1).

 Chirp spread spectrum is resistive to Doppler shift.

 Used for low power and low data rates.

IFA’2021 20
 CHARACTERISTICS OF CHIRP PULSES

 A chirp pulse is a frequency modulated pulse:

– Within the chirp duration (T), the frequency is changing in a monotonic manner
 From a lower value to a higher one (“Up-Chirp”)
 From a higher value to a lower one (“Down-Chirp”)
– The difference between these two frequencies is a good approximation for the
bandwidth B of the chirp pulse Fourier transform
Chirp Pulse of the time domain signal gives us the
frequency domain (B)

S(f)

f
B
Assume a snapshot of time T
where we see UP-CHIRP Up-chirp in time and frequency domains)
IFA’2021 21
 REMARK

LoRa uses 3 different BWs: 125kHz, 250kHz and 500kHz

 LoRa symbols are modulated over a up-chirp of 125kHz BW and

different orthogonal (almost) spreading factors are used based on
data rate requirement and channel conditions.

 LoRa uses SF7 to SF12 spreading factors.

IFA’2021 22
 SYMBOL, SPREADING FACTOR AND CHIP

 A Symbol represents one or more bits of data, e.g. Symbol =1011111 (Decimal  95)
 # of raw bits that can be encoded by the symbol is 7;  SF=7
 The symbol has 2SF values. If SF=7 the values range from 0-127 = 128 chips
 The symbol value is encoded onto a sweep signal (up chirp)

fhigh
Take this sweep signal and chop it
into 128 pieces and call each piece a chip
fcenter

flow
Time
IFA’2021 23
 MODULATION TECHNIQUES FOR CSS

 CHIRP MODULATION (BASICs)

– On-Off-Keying (OOK): f
For example, Up-Chirp = “1”; Null = “0” 1 0 1 0 0 1
fHI

– Superposed Chirps (Two bits/per symbol; 4 fLO

t
possible states):
Null (00) Chirp
Up (10) Chirp
Down (01) Chirp
Superposition of Up-and Down-Chirp (11)

 LoRa Implementation of CHIRP: Chirp pulse

– Information is encoded in frequency jumps in OOK with Null and Up-Chirp

the chirp signal (similar to FSK)

IFA’2021 24
 LoRa Modulation based on CHIRP IDEA

MODULATED SIGNALS
00 01 10 11
Frequency +B/2

-B/2
0/4 1/4 2/4 3/4 Time
Symbol Time
Ts=2SF/B
From the patent SF=Spreading factor
EP2449690 (B1)

IFA’2021 25
 SYMBOL, SPREADING FACTOR AND CHIP
 Sweep signal is divided into 2SF steps or chips
 For example, the symbol is 1011111. (Dec. is 95)
 # of raw bits that can be encoded by this symbol is SF=7
 Sweep signal (shown at “0”) is chopped/divided into 2SF=27=128 chip

SYMBOL= 10 11 11 1 = 95

If you ordered chips in these arrangements

they represent decimal values 64, 32 and 95.
fhigh

fcenter
128 chips with decimal value 95

flow 0 64 32 95
64 represented 32 represented 95 represented
IFA’2021 By (2/2) By (3/4) by (1/4) Time 26
 SYMBOL, SPREADING FACTOR AND CHIP

 Example: SF=12. Each symbol can carry 12 raw bits of information and
there are 212=4096 unique chip values ranging from 0-4095

 SF defines 2 values:
– # of raw bits that can be encoded by that symbol: SF
– Each symbol can hold 2SF chips

 CHIRP versus CHIP:

– A symbol holds 2SF chips
– Chirps are simply a ramp from flow to fhigh (up-chirp) or fhigh to flow
(down chirp)
IFA’2021 27
 CHIP RATE
 Unit of bandwidth is Hertz which is the number of vibrations
or wave cycles per second.
 BW is interchangeable with chip rate
 BW = Rc = CHIP RATE (chips/sec)
– e.g., BW= 125 kHz 125000 chips/s

fhigh Bandwidth (BW)

SF=9
fhigh - flow

fcenter BW=125kHz Symbol carries 9 raw bits of info

Symbol holds 2SF = 29 = 512 chips

flow
IFA’2021
Symbol holds Time 28
512 chips
 SYMBOL RATE

 Rs (symbols/sec) = BW /2SF = Rc / 2SF

 BW in Hz and SF =7-12.
 Example: BW=125 kHz and SF =7  Rs = 125000/27 = 977 symbols/sec

A SINGLE SYMBOL

fhigh

Bandwidth (BW)
fhigh - flow
fcenter

flow
Time
IFA’2021 29
 DATA RATE

Chip rate is always higher than the symbol rate  Rc > Rs

Data Rate (DR) or Bit Rate Rb

Rb (bits/sec) = SF * BW/2SF * 4/(4+CR)

# of raw bits each Coding Rate:
# of symbols
symbol carries Actual # of bits
per second
BW in Hz which carries information
SF=7-12
CR=1-4
IFA’2021 30
 EXAMPLES: DATA RATES

SF=7 and CR=1

– BW= 125 kHz  Rb = 5.5 kbps
– BW 250 kHz; Rb = 10.9 kbps
– BW=500kHz; Rb = 21.9 kbps

Increasing BW  Data rate is increased !

IFA’2021 31
 EXAMPLES:
 BW=125 kHz and CR=1
– SF=7  Rb = 5.5 kbps
– SF 8  Rb =3.13 kbps
– SF=9  Rb = 1.76 kbps
– SF=10  Rb = 0.98 kbps
– SF=11  Rb = 0.54 kbps
– SF=12  Rb = 0.29 kbps

Increasing SF  data rate is decreased !

IFA’2021 32
 Data Rate Configuration Effective Bit Rate
(bps)
DATA RATES 0 LoRa: SF10 / 125
kHz
980

1 LoRa: SF9 / 125 kHz 1760

Symbol Rate: 2 LoRa: SF8 / 125 kHz 3125

𝑩
Symbol has 2SF 𝑹𝒔 = 𝑺𝑭 3 LoRa: SF7 / 125 kHz 5470
values. If SF=7, 𝟐
SF bits per symbol 4 LoRa: SF8 / 500 kHz 12500
Values range
from 0-127 Bit Rate (Data Rate):
5:7 Future Use
8 LoRa: SF12 / 500 980
𝑩 kHz
𝑹𝒃 = 𝑺𝑭 𝑺𝑭 9 LoRa: SF11 / 500 1760
𝟐 kHz
10 LoRa: SF10 / 500 3900
kHz
• SF8 takes exact twice the time of SF7 11 LoRa: SF9 / 500 kHz 7000
and SF9 takes exact twice time of SF8.
12 LoRa: SF8 / 500 kHz 12500
• Symbol Rate (Rs), Bandwidth (B) and
13 LoRa: SF7 / 500 kHz 21900
Spreading Factor (SF) relation:
Rs = B / (2SF) 14:15 Future Use
IFA’2021 33
 REMARK
 Signals which are transmitted with different chirpyness always orthogonal.

 Different chirp rate can be achieved by different spreading factors and/or by different BWs

 This way LoRa symbols can by simultaneously transmitted and received on a same channel
without interference.

 LoRa has 6 spreading factors (SF7 - SF12) and 3 different BWs (125kHz, 250kHz & 500kHz).

 Note that all the combinations of spreading factors and bandwidth are not orthogonal.
EXAMPLE:
 Symbol Rate = B / (2SF) and Chirp Rate = B* (Symbol Rate)  CHIRP RATE= B * B/(2SF)

– Case 01:  SF=7; B=125 kHz

– Case 02:  SF=9; B=250 kHz
 Both combinations are not orthogonal and cannot be used on a same channel
IFA’2021 34
 CHIP DURATION

Because Rc = BW, the chip duration can be calculated:

Tc (sec) = 1 / BW (Hz)

Example: BW=125 kHz  Tc = 1/125000 = 8 microsec

IFA’2021 35
 SYMBOL DURATION = SWEEP TIME
Ts (sec) = 2SF / BW (Hz)  For SF =7-12

SF=7
fhigh BW=125kHz  Ts = 1.024 ms

Bandwidth (BW)
BW=250kHz  Ts = 512 msec
BW=500kHz  Ts = 256 msec

fhigh - flow
fcenter
Increasing BW  Symbol duration decreases
flow BW=125 kHz
SF=7  Ts = 1.024 msec
time SF=9  Ts = 4.096 msec
Ts Ts SF=12  Ts=32.768 msec
Symbol Duration Increasing SF  Symbol duration increases
IFA’2021 36
 SPREADING FACTOR VS SYMBOL DURATION

If SF increases by 1 the symbol duration doubles.

BW

fh

fc

fl
SF7 SF8 SF9 SF10 SF11

from 2 to 4 for example

IFA’2021 37
 SPREADING FACTOR
HOW FAST YOU CAN GO UP IN THE FREQUENCIES  USE SF

Frequency

Time
The smaller the SF, the shorter time you take from lower frequency to higher frequency
* Higher the Spreading Factor -> Higher the over-the-air time
* Lower the Spreading Factor -> Higher the Data Rate.
IFA’2021 38
 SPREADING FACTOR IMPACT
 If you increase the SF by 1,

– Symbol duration or sweep time doubles

– It reduces the bit rate approximately by half compared to prev SF

– Time on Air (ToA) (=message transmission time) increases which means the
distance increases

 Example: Time on Air  10 byte payload; BW = 125 kHz

– SF7  Transmission Time = 41 ms
– SF 12  Transmission Time = 991 ms

IFA’2021 39
 SPREADING FACTOR IMPACT

LoRa devices use a higher SF when the signal is weak or

there is high interference.

Using a higher SF  a longer ToA

If the sensor is far away from sink the signal can get
weaker and thus, it needs a higher spreading factor.
IFA’2021 40
 RSSI & SNR VALUES IN LORA

dBm and is a negative value; closer to 0 the better the signal

– RSSImin = -120dBm
– RSSI = -30 dBm (Signal strong)
– RSSI = -120 dBm (Signal weak)

– SNR = -20 dB to +10 dB

– Value closer to +10 dB is received signal is less corrupted

IFA’2021 41
 LoRa Demodulation: Without Interference

Multiply with down-chirps  constant

IFA’2021 42
 LoRa Demodulation: With Narrowband Interference

IFA’2021 43
 LoRa Frame Format: PHY Frame

2 Header Modes (Payload length;

Coding Rate; CRC)

Explicit Header
Mode

Implicit Header
Mode:
Without Header
(fixed values)

IFA’2021 44
 LoRaWAN Device Classes

 Three classes of devices have been defined, to address specific

application requirements:

– Class A (ALL): Battery Devices. Each device uplink to the gateway is

followed by 2 short downlink receive windows.

– Class B (BEACON): same as class A but these devices also opens extra
receive windows at scheduled times

– Class C (Continous): same as A but these devices have a continuous

open receive window (i.e., listening), except when transmitting. They
use more power.

IFA’2021 45
 LoRa Class A (ALL)
 At any time an end-device initiates communication; can broadcast a signal; UL
 After this UL tx, the end node will listen for a response from the gateway.
 End node opens two receive slots (pre-determined) response windows at t1 and t2 seconds
after an UL tx.
 Gateway can respond within the first receive slot or the second one but not both
 By this way end node only needs to listen during those time intervals.
 Otherwise it can sleep to save energy

Slot 1 Slot 2
TX RX1 RX2
t1
End node t2
time
transmits UL
IFA’2021 46
 CLASS A

IFA’2021 47
 LoRa Class A (ALL)
 Mandatory supported by all
LoRa devices
 Suitable for monitoring
services, with mostly UL traffic
 Adaptive modulation
 Very low energy consumption
 Bidirectional communications
 Unicast messages
IFA’2021
 Small payloads, long intervals
 Listens only after end device
transmission
 Modules with no latency
constraint
 Most energy efficient devices
 Fire Detection
 Earthquake Early Detection
48
 CLASS B (COORDINATED SAMPLED LISTENING)

 Class B devices incorporate class A devices behavior

 In addition to Class A receive slots, Class B devices open extra n receive time slots (called
PING SLOTS) periodically based on the time reference in the beacon sent by the gateway
 End node receives the beacon from the gateway allowing itself to synchronize with the
gateway.
 Beacons are transmitted every 2n seconds (n=0…7) based on SF (e.g., every 128sec for SF 7)

beacon beacon
ping period
Class A
node rx rx rx rx rx
tx slot 1 slot 2

beacon period time

IFA’2021 49
 CLASS B

IFA’2021 50
 LoRa Class B (Beacon)

 End devices with latency constraints for the reception of messages in a few secs
 Low energy consumption
 Bidirectional communication with scheduled receive slots
 Unicast and Multicast messages
 Small payloads, long intervals
 Periodic beacons from gateway
 Adapted to battery powered end devices
 Smart Metering
 Temperature Monitoring

IFA’2021 51
 CLASS C (CONTINOUSLY LISTENING)
 In addition to Class A receive slots, a class C device will listen continuously for
responses from the gateway until the next UL transmission
 Class C devices do not support class B functionality.
 Server (Gateway) can initiate transmission at any time
 End –device can continuously receive

Class A
node rx rx rx (remains open until next uplink) node
tx slot 1 slot 2 tx

time
IFA’2021 52
 CLASS C (CONTINOUSLY LISTENING)

IFA’2021 53
 LoRa Class C (Continuously Listening)

 End devices for the grid or with no power constraints

 Fleet Management & Real Time Traffic Management
 End devices are always ready to receive signals from the gateways
(except when transmitting)
 Medium/High energy consumption at end device

 Unicast and Multicast messages

 Suitable for actuations with strict time constraints
– Automation, control, etc…

IFA’2021 54