LoRa Meets Arduino, a Journey in the LPWAN World

I have been toying with different radio based communication systems for my herd of walking robots (a future project), a little bit of Bluetooth, currently using Microchip eRIC radio transceiver modules and hoping to find out more about IoT WiFi in the not too distant future. I don't know much about LoRa, although thinking about it I realised I don't know anything about it despite having looking at a number of Element14 projects that use it.

Looks like a big crowd will be watching this so they might be in the same boat as me, alternatively it might be the possibility of getting hold of an Arduino Mug that is bringing in the crowds. There is no mug linked at the top of this page with the MKR 1310 (must be an oversight) to buy and when I searched about buying an official one, there doesn't seem to be one, so I will obviously need a killer question to win one - maybe 'Will LoRan work if put inside an Arduino Mug?".

Dubbie

"...'Will LoRan work if put inside an Arduino Mug?"."

That probably very much depends upon if the mug still contains your favourite hot beverage in it at the time of the test or not ? 

( I seem to recall that Loran was a long range coastal radio navigation system ?)

"...I don't know much about LoRa..."

Andreas Spiess produced a few introductory tutorial videos on LoRa and LoRaWAN, which may be of interest if you want to get some background info:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3XBzmAj53Rkkogh-lti58h_GkhzU1n7U 

I recall he did some road trip tests to see what sort of range he could get with it and what other nodes he could pick up in his area.

"...'Will LoRan work if put inside an Arduino Mug?"."

That probably very much depends upon if the mug still contains your favourite hot beverage in it at the time of the test or not ? 

( I seem to recall that Loran was a long range coastal radio navigation system ?)

"...I don't know much about LoRa..."

Andreas Spiess produced a few introductory tutorial videos on LoRa and LoRaWAN, which may be of interest if you want to get some background info:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3XBzmAj53Rkkogh-lti58h_GkhzU1n7U 

I recall he did some road trip tests to see what sort of range he could get with it and what other nodes he could pick up in his area.

Dave,

That's a lot of videos! Maybe I'll come back to the first introduction but for now, it is time to do some gardening.

Dubbie

"...but for now, it is time to do some gardening."

perhaps you need to construct some gardening robots ?

Dave,

I was sitting in the garden the other day thinking about making a mobile robot for outside, wondering what size and power of motor would be needed. The last outside mobile robot I made used recycled electric wheelchair motors but I don't have any more and that might be a bit of overkill for a back garden. The other problem is that sitting in the back garden tends to lead naturally to more sitting in the back garden rather than actually doing anything.

Dubbie

I had wondered if some of the vehicles from the R/C model construction vehicle scene could be used. They have back actor excavators and bulldozers that are powerful enough to work outdoors moving earth and sand. It's only a small amount however if they do a little often then perhaps it could work.

There are robot lawnmowers now, so that's a start, although still a bit expensive and I have visions of them taking a wrong turn and heading off down the M6... However they are ideal as lawns tend to need to be cut lightly but regularly.

Aerating lawns - that's a tedious task and perhaps could be done using a cordless drill on some sort of tracked robot base.

Spreading fertiliser evenly should be doable.

Could have them hooked up to a LoRa network for status monitoring.

Dave,

I would really like one that gets rid of slugs and snails and then brings me a cup of tea.

Dubbie