How may LoRaWAN help utilities grow their operations by allowing IoT applications for smart cities? This article examines how LoRaWAN enables utility businesses to enhance their use of IoT applications for smart cities. Keep on reading to learn more!
Overview
Data is crucial to intelligent process automation, but where does it originate from? For utilities, accurate data collecting has long been a challenge. As a result, data gathering systems are scattered, limiting the application of data analytics at the scale required to make a genuine difference to the business and consumers.
The primary problem is the scattered nature of the data collection requirements. Installing smart meters in homes necessitates a reliable, secure backhaul that is not dependent on existing infrastructure that may or may not be accessible.
Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) technology allows millions of smart meters’ cost-effective, dependable, and secure interconnection. By providing an easy connection of smart IoT devices to a network, utilities can extend their business with IoT applications for smart cities and communities. With readily available data to give actionable insights, Lora Gateway may assist utility providers in cutting costs, improving safety, reducing waste, and increasing customer happiness.
Information extracted from various market research.
According to the market research firm, the number of smart meters and utility applications connected via LPWAN technologies will exceed 300 million by 2023.
The radio signal penetration for LPWAN networks enables reliable connection to meters in basements or high up in tower buildings. Using unlicensed frequency bands below 1GHz allows links that can span kilometers, connects isolated places, and gives links to meters that can be concealed away. These sub-GHz frequencies also deal with one of the smart meters’ most critical issues: location. The meter may be put in various locations throughout the house, and ensuring that the signal gets to and from the meter is vital.
The signals are linked by a Lora gateway, which third-party network providers are increasingly handling, and then sent to the cloud to be digested into data analytic tools. The extended range and strong radio signal penetration minimize the number of gateways required, allowing for the deployment of cost-effective LPWAN networks in many nations.
History of LoRaWAN
The LoRaWAN standard, developed in 2015, especially for low-power sensor networks and based on LoRa modulation technology, is increasingly used in substations for fault detection and smart grid monitoring.
Using battery-powered wireless sensor nodes can offer important data and even predict when equipment will break, allowing replacements to be done as part of scheduled maintenance rather than responding to a potentially catastrophic failure. In this case, the lower power needs of LoRaWAN mean that the batteries on a wireless sensor node can persist for several years, avoiding the cost of battery replacement cycles, which can be a problem in large-scale data-capture deployments.
Security
Of course, keeping user data safe and secure is essential. Data can be secured from the smart meter to the enterprise data systems. The LoRaWAN network contains incorporated two-layer security optimized for low-power data networking and is based on AES 128-bit encryption keys. Because LoRa packets do not use the IP protocol, there is no need for data conversion, and the data can be kept secure in an end-to-end implementation.
Compatibility
LoRaWAN is now an internationally recognized standard as Y.4480 from the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T), and 500 LoRa Alliance members use it. One of the industry’s issues is the enormous number of various standards for data from smart meters. It is being addressed by open organizations such as the LoRa Alliance, collaborating with several standards groups to ensure compatibility and provide applicable Lora gateways.
Future direction
Direct satellite connection is a developing technology that can benefit utilities even more. Satellites with payloads capable of directly handling LPWAN signals have been launched, delivering data in near real-time from all over the world. Satellite operators can repurpose terrestrial gateway systems or create their own Software Defined Radio (SDR) solution that implements the desired LPWAN modulation. Multiple satellite LPWAN networks have been created or launched, giving enterprise users more network and analytic engines. It increases volume and competition and reduces costs.
Smart monitoring, data gathering, and analysis breakthroughs are part of an ever-expanding array of cost-cutting options for smart cities and communities.
How is a LoRa gateway operated?
Modules whose devices include a LoRa concentrator that enables the reception of LoRa packets. Radio modules known as LoRa gateways are equipped with a LoRa concentrator, which allows the reception of LoRa packets. In the LoRa gateway’s operating system background, packet forwarding software operates. The network administrator has more control over managing his gateway in this fashion. Although the data rate between the end node (also known as the node or end device) and the LoRa gateway is low, this compromise is required to support long-lasting battery life and a wide radio spectrum.
Conclusion
The LoRaWan Network is a long-range wireless communication system for the Internet of Things (IoT) devices. It is a long-range wireless technology that provides low power consumption with high data transfer rate. It uses sub-gigahertz radio frequencies that can travel vast distances and penetrate through buildings, making it ideal for Internet of Things (IoT) applications and networks.
If you want more help, do contact the experts at Akenza. The experts at Akenza that the companies most successful at adopting and deploying IoT pilots and solutions don’t do it alone.
