Dual_Band_LoRaWAN_Gateway

Deploy dual band LoRaWAN gateway on the RAK7391

[TOC]

1. Introduction

This project deploys a dual band LoRa gateway (sub-GHz and 2.4GHz) with remote management using Tailscale on the RAK7391 and it also can show LoRaWAN statistics on an OLED screen.

2. Hardware Setup

In this project, you need the following hardware:

• RAK2287 WisLink LPWAN Concentrator or any other subGHz concentrator.
• LoRa 2.4GHz Concentrator
• RAK1921 WisBlock OLED Display
• RAK7391 WisGate Developer Connect

There are there MiniPCIe slots on the RAK7391, mount the RAK2287 Concentrator on the MiniPCIe #1 and mount 2.4GHz Concentrator on the MiniPCIe #2. The RAK7391 board has a dedicated I2C port (J14) for OLED screen, and RAK1901 can be assembled.

3. Software Deploy

All services are placed separately in different folders and can be deployed with docker compose. you need to deploy them in the following order:

3.1 Network Server

3.1.1 Deploy TTS

In the network-server folder, you can deploy The Things Stack LoRaWAN Network Server on the RAK7391. First of all, you need to modify the environment variable TTS_DOMAIN in the docker-compose.yml. It's value should be set to your host IP or DOMAIN. Then run the command docker compose up to start up TTS service.

After the TTS is deployed successfully, you can visit the TTS console in your browser by the URL https://{TTS_DOMAIN} , the default User ID is admin and password is changeme.

3.1.2 Register gateway, app and device

There is an easy way to register gateway, app and device to TTS by the script tool auto_lns_config.sh. First, modify the configuration file config.json to match your gateway, app and device.

To set the frequency-plan-id filed for the gateway and device, you can run the following command to list all available frequency plans for gateway and device:

docker exec -it stack ttn-lw-cli gateways list-frequency-plans
docker exec -it stack ttn-lw-cli end-devices list-frequency-plans

Then run the following command to register gateway, app and device:

./auto_lns_config.sh ./config.json

3.2 Gateway

In the gateway folder, you can deploy Basicstaion and UDP package forwarder with docker compose. Basicstation is connected to RAK2287 concentrator and UDP package forwarder is connected to 2.4GHz concentrator. You still need to modify the docker compose.xml file

3.2.1 Basicstation

You need to modify the environment variable TC_KEY and TC_TRUST to match your TTS, then basicstation can connect to TTS successfully.

TC_KEY

You can get TC_KEY with the following steps:

• login to TTS console and Click Go to Gateways icon
• select the RAK2287 gateway
• Under the gateway page, select the API keys menu on the left.
• Click Add API key button.
• Select Grant individual rights and then check these rights:
  • Link as Gateway to a Gateway Server for traffic exchange ...
• Click Create API key.
• Copy the created API key and paste this API key to the TC_KEY variable

TC_TRUST

You can run the following command to get TC_TRUST value:

docker exec -it stack ./get_certificate.sh

Then paste this certificate to the TC_TRUST variable

3.2.2 UDP package forwarder

After you modify docker compose file, run the command docker compose up to start up basicstation and UDP package forwarder.

3.3 Package forwarder logger

To show LoRaWAN statistics on the OLED screen, we need to deploy Packet Forwarder Loggers to monitor metrics from Basicstation or UDP package forwarder.

In the docker-compose.yml file, it monitor basicstation by default, if you want to monitor UDP package forwarder, you need to modify the environment variable PROTOCOL and CONTAINER_NAME. Then run the command docker compose up to start up the service.

After deploy the package forwarder logger, run the script oled.py by the follow command:

python3 oled.py

Then you can see the LoRaWAN statistics on the OLED screen.

3.4 Remote Access

In the remote-access folder, you can deploy Tailscale with docker compose, then you can manage RAK7391 remotely. In the [docker-compose.yml](remote-access/docker compose)，you need to modify the environment variable TS_AUTH_KEY generated by your Tailscale account.

Here are the steps:

1. Browse to https://tailscale.com/, click the blue icon Use Tailscale to login
2. Go to the setting page and generate the key.
3. Copy the key and paste this key to the TS_AUTH_KEY variable

Then run the command docker compose up to add RAK7391 to your own private Tailscale network. you can see the RAK7391 on the console:

Tailscale works seamlessly with Linux, Windows, macOS, Raspberry Pi, Android, Synology, and more. you can install Tailscale on your other device and log in with the same Tailscale account, then you can manage RAK7391 remotely.