LoRa Communications as an Enabler for Internet of Drones towards Large-Scale Livestock Monitoring in Rural Farms

Table 3. 

Technical specification of the LoRa multi-channel gateway. 

Item Specification 

Microcontroller 

Raspberry Pi 3B 

LoRa Chipset 

Sx1301 

Frequency  

915 MHz 

Input  

5V–2.5 A 

Antenna 

SMA antenna 915 Mhz 50 ohm 5 dBi 

RX Sensitivity 

Min: 

−

137 dBm 

 

Figure 5. 

Block diagram of the modified LoRaWAN

®

 multi-channel GW.

 

 

Figure 6. 

Components of the LoRaWAN

®

 multi-channel GW.

 

To identify the capability of the LoRa wireless communication and coverage predic-

tion, a CloudRF

®

 simulator was used. CloudRF

®

 is an online radio planning tool that can 

perform link budget and coverage prediction by considering the surrounding effect. 

CloudRF

®

 also offers configurable options to simulate the conditions and characteristics 

Figure 5.

Block diagram of the modified LoRaWAN

®

multi-channel GW.

Sensors 

2021

, 

21

, x FOR PEER REVIEW 

11 of 27 

 

 

One of the drawbacks of the utilized multi-channel GW is that it does not support 

operating in areas where internet access is difficult to secure, i.e., it does not support op-

erating in offline mode. Accordingly, it was further developed to enable offline data col-

lection mode. This was achieved by using the same chipset of the multi-channel with a 

different hat design based on a Raspberry Pi and a second server was installed in the gate-

way to save the LoRa packet from the node locally. Thereby, it acts as a local storage de-

vice and a mini server that stores and pre-processes the data while in offline mode. The 

GW then pushes the data to the application server once an internet connection is available, 

in which the operation can be made by using a toggle switch on the gateway. Figures 5 

and 6, respectively, show the block diagram and the components of the modified Lo-

RaWAN

®

 multi-channel GW, and Table 3 lists the technical specifications of the LoRa 

multi-channel GW. 

Table 3. 

Technical specification of the LoRa multi-channel gateway.