Implementation of a LoRa Mesh Library

Abstract

LoRa is a popular communication technology in the Internet of Things (IoT) domain, providing low-power and long-range communications. Most LoRa IoT applications use the LoRaWAN architecture, which builds a star topology between LoRa end nodes and the gateway they connect to. However, LoRa can also be used for the communication between end nodes themselves, forming a mesh network topology. In this paper, we present a library that allows to integrate LoRa end nodes into a LoRa mesh network, in which a routing protocol is used. Thus, an IoT application running on these nodes can use the library to send and receive data packets to and from other nodes in the LoRa mesh network. The designed routing protocol is proactive, and maintains the routing table at each node updated by sending routing messages between neighboring nodes. The implemented library has been tested on embedded boards featuring an ESP32 microcontroller and a LoRa single-channel radio. By using our LoRa mesh library, nodes do not need to connect to a LoRaWAN gateway, but among themselves. This opens the possibility for new, distributed applications solely built upon tiny IoT nodes.