LoRa Gateway Setup

NOTE: In order to use the RAK2245 RPi HAT, the SPI and I2C interfaces must be enabled on the Pi as noted in Configuring the Gateway in the official RAK2245 Pi Hat Quick Start Guide. When these interfaces are enabled, the UART RX/TX lines are no longer available to the embedded Bluetooth hardware, and thus the bluetooth service is effectively disabled. It is highly recommended that a Bluetooth USB-dongle be acquired in order to use Bluetooth in conjunction with the LoRaWAN protocol.

Hardware

This system was configured using a RAK2245 RPi HAT Edition (US915 MHz)

Software Setup

  1. Follow the installation procedure as outlined in the RAK Wireless Gateway instructions under Installation Procedure

  2. Follow the steps listed under Configuring the Gateway in the official RAK2245 Pi Hat Quick Start Guide

  3. Follow the steps listed under Connect the Gateway with ChirpStack in the official RAK2245 Pi Hat Quick Start Guide

Connecting a LoRa Sensor

The process for connecting each LoRa sensor will likely be different. Before purchasing a LoRa sensor, be sure there is proven documentation on how to both connect the sensor to a ChirpStack application and decode the data into usable values.

  1. To see an example of how to connect a LoRa sensor to ChirpStack, please reference page 47 and onwards of this SenseCAP sensor guide

  2. To connect the sensor to ThingsBoard, follow the instructions as laid on in ChirpStack’s official ThingsBoard Integration documentation.

  3. To create a rule chain to decode the data values sent to ThingsBoard, follow the instructions as laid out in ThingsBoard’s official documentation on how to transform incoming telemetry.