Connection of packet forwarder as range extender / network bridge

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  • May 3, 2018 at 4:32 am #23353
    Boyko Vesselinov
    Participant

    Hello,

    We are trying to connect one MTCDT-246A / 1.4.3 – packet forwarder, to transmit packets from nodes to another MTCDT-246A / 1.4.3 – Network Server, via Lora. Nodes are associated to the packet forwarder. This way we are trying to extend the Lora coverage. Is this possible to acheve in Packet forwarder mode and how to configure receiving MTCDT EUI addressing in global_conf.json?

    Thx.

    Boyko

    May 3, 2018 at 7:20 am #23357
    Jason Reiss
    Keymaster

    This is not possible with packet forwarder.

    There is no method for forwarding packets over lora in a bi-directional manner. I could be possible to repeat the received packets on the forwarding Conduit.

    The packet forwarder has no database of EUI or DevAddr. It only forwards packets to a network server for authentication and decryption. There is no EUI configuration available in the global_conf.json file.

    Conduits can be connected via Ethernet with one being a packet forwarder and the other a network server and packet forwarder to increase range.

    June 9, 2018 at 6:30 am #23792
    Fernando Luis
    Participant

    I would like to do the same than Boyko. Being the packet forwarder always involved in the uplink and downlink messages I guess it could be possible setting up the Conduit in Packet Forwarder Mode.

    I would appreciate any help about how to capture the uplink messages from an end-device (join and data) at the output of the packet-forwarder and, then, how to send it again at the input of the packet-forwarder like if it was coming from a network-server.
    Actually I can see incoming packets from the end-device using an UDP node in Node-Red but I don’t know how to re-send to the packet forwarder.

    I have a Conduit with 2 LoRa cards. I could use one only for listening and other for re-transmitting. Is this possible?

    Thank you very much.

    June 9, 2018 at 7:25 am #23793
    Boyko Vesselinov
    Participant

    Hi Fernando,

    We managed to solve our problem with a work-around. It is not possible to associate one gateway to the other gateway thru the Lora cards. So we have following setup:
    – Gateway 1 receives messages from nodes, processes data with Node-red.
    – On USB Host of GW1 we put mDot on micro dev kit, in COMMAND mode
    – We send processed payload in Node red to Serial out flow, with a flag/index according to EUI of respective node, combined with AT+SEND command.
    – On GW2 the mDot is associated as a node
    – GW2 receives frame from GW1 thru the mDot, we further process/unpack with node-red to get our actual payload and feed it further to the PLC.

    Both GWs are in NS mode. For some reason we could not get the mDot to do the job in Serial mode, but serial comm is a pain by itself. It is a bit of a trouble until you find out on which port the mDot appears, in our case it was on XRUSB04.

    Good luck.
    Boyko

    June 12, 2018 at 5:44 am #23803
    Fernando Luis
    Participant

    Hi Boyko,

    Thank you very much for your answer. I will try your solution.

    In the incoming days, with more time, I will explore the solution using the packet-forwarder and 2 radios. I can’t understand why this functionality is not yet provided by Multitech because GWs can’t be always connected to a LAN.

    Best,
    F.

    June 15, 2018 at 1:15 am #23850
    Boyko Vesselinov
    Participant

    Hi Fernando,
    We integrated yesterday in field conditions – it works. We put a Yagi antenna on the mDot – covered circa 5kms GW to GW (868MHz) in cross terrain at around -115db. MDOt should be in OTAA mode. If there is no data from nodes to be retranslated, mDot sends one join frame, remote GW acknowledges and nothing more happens. So we induced a “handshake” from Nodered – dummy data injected periodically (10mins or more) from mDot to remote GW, to monitor the join.

    Good luck.
    Boyko

    June 15, 2018 at 3:18 am #23853
    Fernando Luis
    Participant

    Hi Boyko,

    Thanks for the info. We tested yesterday as well and it’s working. In our case the distance between both GWs is 2Km in urban environmnent.

    The application that handles the ‘repeater’ functionality is a mix between Node-Red and Python. Node-Red only to use the LoRa node and send the data received through a socket to the Python app.

    We know is not the best solution but so far the fastest and easiest.

    Thanks. BR,
    Fernando

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