In the IoT(Internet of Things) World, everyone should be familiar with LoRa Technology which is first invented in 2009 by Nicolas and Oliver in France and the company Cycleo they established was acquired by Semtech in 2012.
LoRa is a spread spectrum modulation technique derived from chirp spread spectrum (CSS) technology which can meet most of the requirements for IoT with Long Range and Low Power. It is quite flexible for rural and indoor use cases and has been utilised in smart cities, smart homes and smart agriculture, etc.
LoRa Fills a Technology Gap
This article is not to describe what LoRa is and what role LoRa plays in IoT. You could almost get everything about LoRa from Semtech website.
Instead, I would like to say LoRa has its own limitations. Similar to Cellular base stations, LoRa Gateway also needs to have LAN, Cellular, WIFI or Satellite as connection to the network server for LoRaWAN solution.
This brings in a big problem — Coverage.
As far as I know, the theoretic maximum range of existing LoRa Gateway can reach to 15–20 km. Wow, sounds brilliant! But thinking about more use cases, can LoRa be used in the further sea to manage the ship fleet or in the Amazon rainforest to monitor the ecosystem? The answer might be NO as 20km is not large enough even if we don’t think about the other factors that will limit the range of LoRa coverage.
LoRa Bridge
Simply speaking, LoRa Bridge is to provide connection to LoRa Gateway with other Gateways.
See below, there are multiple sensors on each ship but these ships are too far away from the LoRa Gateway. Due to the connection and some other factors, the gateway can only be located at the edge of the cellular coverage.
Sensors on the ships are out of LoRa gateway coverage
How are these further sensors talking to the gateway?
If the Gateway has capability of transmitting data via RF between Gateways, the problem will be solved easily. This is why we need LoRa Bridge feature/function on the LoRa gateways.
See below example, we have a LoRa Gateway installed at a fixed place in the sea (or it can be installed on the ship). All the sensors are covered under it and the data can be transferred via LoRa Bridge to the Gateway which has LAN/Cellular connection. Problem Solved!
Conclusion
LoRa Bridge is not a physical device but a feature/function on the gateway. There are still a lot of questions need to be discussed such as tagging the gateway with type of connection or assigning different roles on the gateways for inter-gateway communication.
With LoRa Bridge, the bigger coverage is built by LoRa Gateway itself instead of expanding network with huge amount of cost.
Author:
My name is Harry Zhou who has been working in Telco Industry for more than 10 years. I am an enthusiast on new technology especially IoT. Welcome to connect me via LinkedIn and let us make the world better via IoT!
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