LoRaWAN

IoT LoRaWAN Development

LoRa WAN is a wireless technology just like the more commonly used WiFi, Bluetooth, 3G, LTE and Zigbee. All of these wireless communication technologies have their strengths and weaknesses and LoRa is no different.

LoRa excels in the low-cost, battery-powered devices that need to send data over a long distance sector. However, for sending data with high bandwidth, LoRa is not a particularly suitable option.

LoRa is the technology that modulates the data you want to send, into electromagnetic waves. This modulation technology of LoRa, called the Chirp Spread Spectrum, has been used in military and space communication for decades already. This is due to the long communication distance that can be achieved and the robustness to interference.

LoRaWAN is designed for large scale IoT deployments where thousands of devices can be connected to a modest number of gateways. These gateways can listen to several channels and process multiple messages at the same time.

Another key characteristic of LoRa, is the speed at which data can be transmitted. There are different data rates that can be used for transmitting data depending on your project needs.

How secure is LoRa WAN?

It is extremely important for any LPWAN to incorporate security. LoRaWAN utilizes two layers of security: one for the network and one for the application. The network security ensures the authenticity of the end device in the network while the application layer of security ensures the network operator does not have access to the end user’s application data. AES encryption is used with the key exchange.

• The Network layer is responsible for the identification of the node, it checks whether a message really comes from a certain device and is referred to as the integrity check. It also encrypts the MAC commands.
• The Application layer is used for payload decryption and encryption.

Both keys are 128 bit AES encrypted, in ECB mode.