New LoRa devkit opens doors to faster IoT prototyping

Three companies involved with the LoRa Alliance have combined forces to create a new development kit aimed at making it easier for IoT developers to quickly prototype new IoT technologies.

The LoRa Alliance is an open, non-profit association of members focused on bringing about a global standard communications avenue for the Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning, industry, and other applications.

One of the avenues the LoRa Alliances is banking on is the LoRaWAN cloud network, a specially-designed for IoT things that use battery power, benefiting from a low-powered wide-area network (LPWAN) connection. The global success of LoRaWAN is among the LoRa Alliance’s top priorities.

Another important benefit of the LoRaWAN standard is support for bidirectional communications with end-points in addition to multicasts – a useful tool for delivering software updates.

There are also battery-saving benefits to the standard. From the official LoRa website:

LoRaWAN data rates range from 0.3 kbps to 50 kbps. To maximize both battery life of the end-devices and overall network capacity, the LoRaWAN network server is managing the data rate and RF output for each end-device individually by means of an adaptive data rate (ADR) scheme.

LoRa member firms all worked on the devkit

The alliances’ member companies — Semtech, Libelium, and Loriot — each worked on the development kit, which ships in 915 MHz and 868 MHz bands to meet American and European requirements. The kit comes complete with a gateway, 10 Semtech sensor devices, software, and the ability to interface with the Loriot LoRaWAN cloud network. The gateway in the kit is used to deliver messages to and from devices and the server.

LoRaWAN includes three different classes of devices. These classes enable for a variety of different applications.

• Class A – Bi-directional end-devices
• Class B – Bi-directional end-devices with scheduled receive slots
• Class C – Bi-directional end-devices with maximal receive slots

The LoRA Alliance is releasing the development kit in an effort to broaden adoption of its communication standard. Recently, Cisco has been added to its list of members.

Can IoT help save the rainforests?

World Heritage Site and Biosphere Reserve, it is a model of biological diversity.

Though the animals and plant life are protected, they are also threatened by climate change. In an effort to preserve this beautiful place, home to various species, Peruvian researchers are leading a project to monitor nature behavior of this rainforest in real time.

Walking through this preserve, it is really common to experience temperature changes, from pouring rain to a scorching sun. Being such a unique area makes this rainforest critical for researcher’s data collection, in order to further analyze these changes.

RFID Radical Solutions, a Peruvian company, has installed Libelium’s Waspmote Plug & Sense Smart Environment and Waspmote Plug & Sense Smart Agriculture platforms for this project.  These two wireless sensor platforms will monitor different parameters of collected water and air samples.  These platforms are able to communicate information with high-range-transmission equipment.

Led by a Peruvian engineer, Jorge Camus, several cameras and 25 wireless sensors have been installed, that can emit information about what is happening in the nature reserve via Internet to any location.

Humidity, temperature, atmospheric pressure, weather and solar radiation are measured, along with the amount of air pollutants, CO2, NO2, O2, CO and CH4.

“This area is really rough, but there is no doubt that is the most suitable one to see how the world behaves in its natural state. So, I think that this is the best place to carry out a project about environmental monitoring,” stated Jorge Camus.

Rainforests will send real-time data

The purpose of this project is to give real-time information about the rainforest environment to researchers who are working in the nature reserve, and to individuals who are interested in this area. All the devices use solar energy supplied by a solar panel installed in each platform. Therefore, the environment of the rainforest and the local people’s lives are not disturbed.

“The sensors installed in this area will monitor the environment of the biosphere, both flora and fauna. There was a great need to know the different parameters, because they reflect nature’s behavior. This scientific data will have a significant use to the worldwide researcher and environmental communities”, affirms Jorge Camus.

Libelium is happy to help scientists and researchers combat climate change because it is a main priority of the company to show corporate social responsibility.  This is a great step in learning about natural habitats and how they work.