TD on LoRA

This TD is derived from that of Amaury BRUNIAUX

Georgios Z. PAPADOPOULOS

1 Technical Overview
1.1 CSS Modulation Technique
Long Range (LoRa) is a physical proprietary radio communication technology. It is based on spread spectrum
modulation techniques derived from Chirp Spread Spectrum (CSS) technology, where chirps, i.e., a chirp a
pulse of signal whose frequency sweeps through a band of frequencies (i.e., from low to high frequency) for
the duration of the pulse, are the carrier of data, see Fig. 1. LoRa was developed by Cycleo, a company that
was based in Grenoble, France, and patented in 2014. Cycleo was later acquired by Semtech Corporation.

Figure 1: An example of an up-chirp where the frequency increases in time.

To facilitate the representation of a symbol, we instead use a Time/Frequency graph of the following
form, see Fig. 2.

Symbole 0 Symbole 1 Symbole 2 Symbole 3

Value 0 Value 32 Bits « 64 » Value 96
fhigh: 868 162 500 Hz
125 kHz

fcenter: 868 100 000 Hz

flow: 868 037 500 Hz

Time (ms)

Figure 2: Symbols transmitted in LoRa Modulation (an example with SF7).

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1.2 Symbol Duration
The symbol duration, or sweep time (in seconds), depends on the following parameters:

• The Spreading Factor (SF), i.e., the number of raw bits that can be encoded by the symbol.
• The Coding Rate (CR), i.e., The coding rate refers to the proportion of the transmitted bits that
carries the actual information. For example, if CR is 4/5, then out of 5 transmitted bits, 1 bit is the
redundant bit.

• The Bandwidth (BW), i.e., it can be either 125kHz or 250kHz in EU868MHz.

And it is calculated as follow:

1 1 2SF
Ts = = BW
= (1)
(Rs ) 2SF
BW
where Rs is the Symbol Rate.

1.3 LoRa Frame Structure

A LoRa frame begins with a preamble without coding, followed by a header with a fixed CR of 4/8, the CR
of the CRC is the same as that of the payload. In the Fig. 3, the LoRa packet structure is illustrated.

in explicit mode only

Preamble PHY Header (20 bits) Payload 16 bits

8 4.25 Payload C Payload

symbols symbols length R
CRC PHY Payload (22 bytes) CRC

CR = 4/8 CR = 4/5

Figure 3: LoRa Packet Structure, source: “SX1276IMLTRT datasheet”.

2 Context
A new operator is approached by the administration of Rennes Métropole, whose area is 705 km2 , to deploy
a LoRa infrastructure for managing an air quality monitoring service. Each LoRa Gateway (i.e., cell) comes
with 150 km2 . This deployment will operate in the unlicensed ISM radio band at EU868 M Hz, with a
channel bandwidth of 125 kHz, a CR of 4/5, and LoRa-based devices operating in LoRaWAN Class A.

Table 1: LoRa Spreading Factor vs Range, source: “LoRa and LoRaWAN: A Technical Overview”.
SF Range
SF7 2km
SF8 4km
SF9 6km
SF10 8km
SF11 11km
SF12 14km

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3 Questions
3.1 SF Selection and Data Rate
1. The city has a total area of 705 square kilometers. Considering that each LoRa-based communication
cell can cover an area of up to 150 square kilometers, how many LoRa cells are required to provide full
coverage for the entire city?

2. Considering the Table 1, which SF should be employed to have the fastest packet transmissions?

3. Calculate the Data Rate (i.e., useful bit rate)?

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3.2 Duty Cycle and Device Lifespan

Table 2: LoRa-based end-device consumption characteristics.

Mode Consumption
TX 82.8mA
RX 31.8mA
Sleeping 45 × 10−3 mA

1. What is a Duty Cycle and why do devices using LoRa technology need to apply one?

2. With a Duty Cycle of 1%, how many packets per hour can an end-device transmit?
[Please, calculate the packet Time on Air through the following website: [Link]

3. Considering the packet rate calculated in the previous question, the information from Table 2 and Fig. 4,
how much charge is consumed each hour?
[Reminder: the Ampere-hour (A.h) unit represents an electrical charge, it represents how much current
can be consumed and for how long.]
[ATTENTION: to correctly convert ms into hours, you can use the following online calculator:
[Link]

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 Rx1 Rx2

Transmit

End-device Sleeps End-device Sleeps

1 second 1 second

End-device Time (ms)

Minimum Rx wake-up time = 5 Symbols

Figure 4: Uplinks, Downlinks and Wake-up Times for SX126x Radios, source of the information “An In-
depth Look at LoRaWAN® Class A Devices”.

4. Calculate the lifespan (i.e., life expectancy) of an end-device powered by a battery containing 950mAh.

5. How many packets per hour should the end-device transmit to have a lifespan of 2 years?

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