LoRa and LoRaWAN
Overview
LoRa (abbrev. for Long Range) is a proprietary low-power wireless communication protocol developed by the Semtech Corporation.
LoRa acts as the physical layer (PHY) based on the chirp spread spectrum (CSS) modulation technique.
LoRaWAN (for Long Range Wide Area Network) defines a networking layer on top of the LoRa PHY.
Zephyr provides APIs for LoRa to send raw data packets directly over the wireless interface as well as APIs for LoRaWAN to connect the end device to the internet through a gateway.
Zephyr provides two LoRaWAN backend implementations:
LoRaMac-node (default): Based on Semtech’s LoRaMac-node library, included as a Zephyr module. Supports all regions defined by the LoRaWAN specification. Selected with
CONFIG_LORA_MODULE_BACKEND_LORAMAC_NODE.Native: A Zephyr-idiomatic LoRaWAN 1.0.x Class A implementation that talks directly to the LoRa radio driver without external dependencies. Currently supports the EU868 region. Selected with
CONFIG_LORA_MODULE_BACKEND_NATIVE.
Note
LoRaMac-node has been deprecated by Semtech in favor of
LoRa Basics Modem. Porting the Zephyr API’s to use
LoRa Basics Modem as the backend is in progress.
Currently, only the base LoRa API is supported for the SX1261, SX1262,
SX1272 and SX1276 chipsets through
CONFIG_LORA_MODULE_BACKEND_LORA_BASICS_MODEM.
The LoRaWAN specification is published by the LoRa Alliance.
Configuration Options
LoRa PHY
Related configuration options can be found under drivers/lora/Kconfig.
LoRaWAN
Related configuration options can be found under subsys/lorawan/Kconfig.
Native Backend
The native backend is selected with
CONFIG_LORA_MODULE_BACKEND_NATIVE and has additional options
under subsys/lorawan/native/Kconfig: