meta-chip-multitech-mtac-lorawan-gateway
NextThingCo C.H.I.P. Yocto LoRaWAN Gateway.
This layer contains recipes to create a LoRaWAN Gateway based on C.H.I.P. and MTAC-LORA mini-PCIe board from Multitech in order to create a private LoRaWAN network.
This layer depends on the additional mandatory layers:
- meta-yocto
- meta-yocto-bsp
- meta-openembedded/meta-oe
- meta-openembedded/meta-python
- meta-openembedded/meta-networking
- meta-chip (from my GitHub https://github.com/joelguittet/meta-chip)
Hardware of the LoRaWAN Gateway
The Gateway is created using the MTAC-LORA board from Multitech (https://www.multitech.com/brands/multiconnect-mcard). It is mounted on a cheap USB to mini-PCIe adapter. However, because the total consumption of the MTAC-LORA and C.H.I.P. boards is too large, a separated 5 Volts supply is required to supply the MTAC-LORA board as shown on the following photo.
Software of the LoRaWAN Gateway
The Gateway is running a specific version of the packet forwarder available at https://github.com/mirakonta/packet_forwarder, forked from Semtech version and modified to be used with the MTAC-LORA board. The packet forwarder is using Semtech UDP protocol version 1 to communicate with the LoRaWAN server. More details about this protocol are available at https://github.com/mirakonta/packet_forwarder/blob/master/PROTOCOL.TXT.
Configuration of the LoRaWAN Gateway
The Gateway is currently configured with WiFi and communicate with a local and private LoRaWAN server.
- recipes-connectivity/wpa-supplicant/files/wpa_supplicant.conf-sane: specifies WiFi SSID and passphrase.
- recipes-connectivity/packet-forwarder/files/global_conf.json.patch: specifies the address of my LoRaWAN server (currently 192.168.1.20 - can be a hostname or IP address).
Additional parameters can be modified (Gateway ID for example), please refer to the packet forwarder repository for more details.
Using
The image "chip-image-chip-multitech-mtac-lorawan-gateway" should be generated and flashed to the C.H.I.P. board. The gateway is immediatly running. It has been tested with a free and open-source LoRaWAN server available at https://github.com/gotthardp/lorawan-server.
Details about generation and flashing of the image are available on my meta-chip layer at https://github.com/joelguittet/meta-chip.
Contributing
All contributions are welcome :-)
Use Github Issues to report anomalies or to propose enhancements (labels are available to clearly identify what you are writing) and Pull Requests to submit modifications.
References
- https://github.com/joelguittet/meta-chip
- https://github.com/mirakonta/packet_forwarder
- https://github.com/mirakonta/lora_gateway
- https://github.com/gotthardp/lorawan-server
Special thanks to Mirakonta who modified packet forwarder for use with MTAC-LORA board.